London's worst 2 years ever: 1665, 1666

 The Bubonic Plague of 1665-1666 had been known in Europe for cent­uries. In England, this was the worst out-break of plague since the Black Death of 1348.

The Plague Window in Eyam Church

Historic UK

It was the rat, attracted by impoverished, rubbish-filled city streets, that brought in the black rat-flea. It was the flea that carried bacteria and caused the plague. The Bubonic Plague created buboes i.e swellings in the lymph nodes found in the armpits, groin & neck, and victims experienced splitting headaches, vom­iting, swollen tongue and fever, turning the victim’s skin black.

Incubation took only 4-6 days and when the plague appeared in a household, the house was sealed, thus condemning the whole family to death! These houses were distinguished by a red cross and the words ‘Lord have mercy on us’ on the door.

The plague started in the Far East and quickly spread through Eur­ope. In London it began in the poor, overcrowded parish of St Giles-in-the-Field outside the city walls. In May 1665, only 43 people died. But the death rate began to rise during the hot summer months and at its peak in August, 31,160 people died. While 68,600 deaths were formally recorded in the city in 1665, the true number was probably 100,000, c15% of London’s population.

Sometimes whole communities died and corpses littered the streets, since there was no one left to bury them. In other places the corpses were brought out at night in answer to the cry,’ Bring out your dead’, put in a cart and taken away to the great gaping plague pits dug into the earth.

King Charles II and his Court fled for Hampton Court in Surrey, then to Oxford. People who could afford to send their families away from London in these months did so - most doctors, lawyers & merchants fled the city. So Parliament was postponed and had to sit in October at Oxford. Court cases were also moved from Westminster to Oxford.

The Lord Mayor of London and the aldermen remained in London to enforce the King’s orders to try and stop the spread of the plague. The poorest families had no choice but to remain in London with the rats and the plague victims. Watchmen locked and kept guard over infected houses. Parish officials provided food. Searchers looked for dead bodies and took them, always at night.

Consider the measures taken by King Charles II in response to the plague. All trade with London and other plague towns was stopped. The Council of Scotland declared that the border with England would be closed. There were to be no fairs or trade with other countries. This meant many people lost their jobs, including those who worked on the River Thames. Orders to the mayors ensured that no stranger was allowed to enter a town unless he had a formal Certificate of Health. No furniture was to be removed from an infected house. There were to be no public gatherings like funerals.

A couple suffering the buboes of bubonic plague

C15th Toggenburg Bible

The plague spread across England. York was one city badly affected. The plague victims were buried outside the city walls and it is said that they have never been disturbed since then, as a pre­cau­tion against a resurgence of the dreaded plague. The grassy emb­ankments below the city walls are the sites of these plague pits.

Memorials were placed everywhere. In some towns and villages in England there are still the old market crosses which have a dep­res­sion at the foot of the stone cross for vinegar. In Derbyshire the small village of Eyam, 6 ms north of Bake­well, has a story of tragedy and courage that will always be remembered. The Plague Window in Eyam Church still recalls the era.

So how did the plague ever end? Did the black rat develop a greater resistance to disease? If the rats did not die, their fleas would not have needed to find a human host and fewer people would have been infected. And the humans who had not died also started to develop a stronger immunity to the dis­ease. After 1666, more effective quarantine methods were used for ships coming into the country.

King Charles II returned to London in Feb 1666, then the gentry returned. Tradesmen opened their businesses again, and life might have returned to normal. Then in Sept 1666 the Great Fire of London destroyed much of cent­ral London. Fortunately the fire also helped to kill off the black rats and fleas that had carried the plague bacillus. When the City was rebuilt after the Fire in brick and stone (not wood), the streets were widened and the open sewers were eradicated. This was the last major plague that London ever saw! 

Two men discovering a dead woman in the street in London, 1665.
Photo credit: Wellcome Trust

Read Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, 1722. And Samuel Pepys’ Diary gave a vivid account of London’s empty streets. The Lost City of London – Before the Great Fire of 1666 is an excellent blog.

Lutana Garden Village, Hobart

a Lutana Arts and Crafts house, c1922

Britain’s company towns were settled by giant companies for their workers. In 1887 for example, Lever Brothers Co. began looking for a new site on which to expand its soap-making business, build housing and develop services for their factory workers. They bought 56 acres of flat unused marshy land near Liverpool, well located near a railway line. The site became Port Sunlight, where William Lever built his industry and his model village. Lever wanted a healthy, happy and productive work­force.

The garden city movement was a contemporary but slightly different British approach to urban planning, founded in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard. Garden cities were planned, self-contained communities surrounded by green belts. They included carefully balanced areas of residences, industry and agriculture. Howard’s book Tom­or­row: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform came out in 1898, followed by Letchworth /Welwyn Garden Cities, both in or near London.

View of the Valley
over the top of the gardens

Reformers before WW1 were concerned with town planning, sanitation, building regulations and slum clearance, influenced by the Garden City Movement in Britain and City Beautif­ul ideas from the USA. I have described planned towns in Australia in this blog, especially Colonel Light Gard­ens in Adelaide, an excellent example of town plan­n­ing. It had radial street pattern, reserves and gardens, wide avenues, useful laneways, street frontages and a park-like setting. This post-WW1 Adelaide suburb adopted a consistent architectural style: Californian bungalows.

But I had not heard of Lutana Garden Villa in Tasmania. There had certainly been state government initiatives to build garden cities in Tasmania. In fact Charles Reade, the visiting English town planner, designed a scheme for Lutana, but all hopes were defeated by conservative politicians. Instead the next Tasmanian government negotiated the establishment of a private corporation, the Electro­lytic Zinc Co., on the site. Herbert Gepp was the General Manager.

This zinc company did indeed plan a garden suburb complete with com­munity and health services for its workers, but economic diff­ic­ult­ies resulted in only a section being completed. The lasting legacy of this compromised vision was a low density suburb with individual houses and gardens; but without the associated overall planning.

Built between 1918-21, and designed by architect and town planner William Butler, Lutana’s prime goal was to build a most beautiful and healthful site just over the hill from the recently established zinc works. Since this suburb was remote from the centre of Hobart, the Company had to provide access to shops and transport. Two railways services daily allowed families to travel and shop.

Unlike the Colonel Light Gardens with its exclusively California Bungalow architecture, Lutana had excellent Arts and Crafts style houses that formed coherent street­scapes. The Garden City approach to housing development was further acc­en­tuated in the curvilinear street pattern and the arrangement of buildings. The strong visual quality of the open spaces and semi-rural land was loved, as was the development of the river.

I've no doubt that providing good housing at an affordable price by a major Tasmanian industry was to attract quality staff at a time of staff shortages. As was the company’s early C20th philosophy of Welfare Capitalism.

Before the village started, all the surrounding countryside was open farm land. Once the locality started to become the centre of the zinc working com­munity, some workers would be living in the village and some would be building around the village. The roads were professionally organised and footpaths were laid down.

In 1922 General Manager of the zinc works, Herbert Gepp, set a first task in Lutana Village of planting special trees with his own silky hands. In the first 2 years, 6 dozen horse chestnut trees were imported to the village and planted.

The houses and facilities were not the private property of the people in the village, but were to be rented. Once the village started, more homes were built by the comp­any and more were rented out to workers. Then the village got their first shared community facility, Lutana’s village hall. Opened in 1924, the hall was surrounded by fine grounds, where the village children could play games. The interior of the hall was compact, but it had plenty of open floor space and an excellent stage at one end of the building.

The hall became the home for the village kindergarten. The parents were asked to assist the kindergarten teacher, if they were going to make it successful for the youngest children (a la kibbutz). A Sunday School was opened in the hall, to save the kiddies a long walk on Sunday afternoons.

The town's kindergarten 

in Lutana's Village Hall

See the outside of the hall as it was orginally built. A gate and fence were built, later to be replaced with a higher fence and more security for the hall and garden. The wooden boxes were built at the front of the hall to protect the horse chestnut trees. Then the co-operative shop was opened, to provide the necessaries of life (once again a la kibbutz). It was a beautiful building, both the exterior and interior.

A mutual assistance tenants' committee of tenants was formed to promote social cohesiveness and to run a scheme of improvements. Many ideas were considered to improve the village, and to pro­vide pleasure for the residents. For example the postal authorities installed a public telephone and opened a letter clearance. A Lutana Xmas Tree was placed in the Hall, for a children’s party. In addition to a bus service from Lutana to central Hobart and good sanitary conditions, Lutana gained its own gas supply, greatly appreciated by the villagers in Tasmania’s cool winters.

The houses, which had 4,5 or 6 rooms each, were fitted with modern con­veniences, including sewerage, water and electric light. The company planned for 180 homes on the site, but they stopped at 42. These 42 houses were rented to employees at very fair rentals: a 4 room house cost only 20 shillings per week. Tenants were selected and the houses were allotted by a sub-committee of the Co-operative Council, Workers HAD to have a high moral character, and men with large families were given preference.

advertising for the Lutana co-operative shop 

that also promoted social cohesiveness

The gardener/workers laid out their own gardens spaces in attractive flower beds, lawns and vegetable plots. The vegetables ensured fresh table supplies of onions, cabbages and beans at a minimum cost, and providing healthy exercise. The houses’ beauty was enhanced by pot plants and garden seats; creepers appeared on trellis work.

Re the interior of the homes, the colours were charmingly done and handy cupboards and shelves were built in. The baths have been made from our own rolled zinc sheets.

The views from the verandas revealed some of Tasmania's finest scenery, including the Derwent Valley beyond Prince of Wales' Bay and the lofty Wellington over Hobart. A beautiful panorama of green past­ures was visible, dotted with splashes of colour, orchards, trees and shrubs.

Clearly the zinc workers’ houses were built on ample blocks, were sewered, well drained & fitted with modern facilities. So why did the company not start the second tranch of home building? And why did the Company write to the Co-operative Council advising there were very substantial reductions in the rents of Lutana homes? In 1926 house rentals were dropped to 14 shillings/week for four rooms! Workers were even advised that the very low rents provided an opportunity for them to start a Savings Bank Account.

Now called Nyrstar, the company still advertises the strong themes it's held since starting in 1917 on the site formerly called the Hobart Zinc Works. The strong relation­ship the smelter created with the community was forged early and continues today via community meetings, sponsorships and partnerships. A engineering heritage marker cerem­ony at Lutana was unveiled by the state Govern­or in Ap 2013

Lennox Avenue, Lutana 2024

Real Estate

Quotes come from Lutana Village - Historical Website

Clunes - one of the world's few booktowns!

Clunes was the site of Victoria's 1st gold strike in 1851 which led to a goldrush sweeping through central Victoria, resulting in a massive population boost for the state and great wealth for some. Now Clunes is an agricultural, pastoral and tourist township in a scenic valley. Many of the original buildings in Clunes have been preserved from those goldrush days, perfectly illustrated in a visit to the wide and elegant Fraser St. It is lined with C19th buildings and shop fronts including the National Hotel (1862), Club Hotel (1870) and Union Bank (1865). Parallel to Fraser St is the main thoroughfare of Bailey St, featuring some historic buildings including the old post office (built 1878), town hall (1872), courthouse (1872) and some churches. See the special buildings in an earlier post.

original 19th century shops

Grattan St Press

Providing a pedestrian link between Fraser St and Bailey St are the gardens of Collins Place which include a paved square and rotunda. Another park of interest is Queens Park, located between Creswick Creek and Ligar St, just around the corner from the shops. The shady grounds of Queens Park date back to the 1870s and include a fountain (built 1887), pergola, BBQ shelter and playground. Esmond Park is on a hillside overlooking the town centre and preserves a number of old gold mining sites including the Port Phillip Mine which operated from 1857-1901. Following Scenic Drive through the park leads to a lookout which provides great views over the township and surrounding countryside. Esmond Park fronts Creswick Creek and there is a pleasant creek walk which follows the shady banks.

Clunes Booktown Festival has been funded through the latest round of the Government’s $38 mill Regional Events Fund, which also supports local events eg the Ballarat Foto Biennale. The fund is delivered by Visit Victoria and supports festivals, sporting events and art exhibitions that create local jobs, boost tourism and show off Victoria’s regional communities. It offers $500,000 for major events of national or international significance and up to $50,000 for events that draw visitors from across the state and country. In the past year, regional events in Victoria have attracted 1 mill+ attendees and led to 300,000+ hotel nights being booked. Since 2016, the Government’s Regional Events Fund has supported 450+ events across regional Victoria. 

The first book festival, Booktown For A Day, opened 2007, organised by the not-for-profit committee Creative Clunes. The town is a charming destination near Melbourne, and is hosting the annual festival for bibliophiles with 130+ book stalls. As one of the world’s 19 designated Book Towns, Clunes is a must-visit destination for book lovers. But now, the bibliophilic Clunes Booktown Festival will return for its 20th anniversary!! Wander down the main street of this charming goldrush town, and discover 130+ book stalls, workshops, panels & live entertainment. It’s happening the weekend Sat March 21st -Sun March 22nd 2026.

Festival goers browsing inside a book shop

Ephemera Society

Festival goers search through piles of books outside.

Australian Traveller

For fans of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, there’s truly something for everyone at this beloved literary festival. 15,000+ people are expected to flock in, just 30 minutes away from Ballarat. Stroll along Fraser St and explore the outdoor book bazaar. Browse through books from specialist book traders, selling new and second-hand books, to rare & popular pieces covering all genres. Continue the journey around town and check out the resident booksellers of Clunes, who will stay open over the weekend.

There’s also a line-up of panels, covering crime writing, speculative fiction, romance, First Nations storytelling, playwriting and historical fiction. Hear from notable writers and thinkers, such as Miles Franklin winner Sofie Laguna, podcaster and author Vikki Petraitis. If you feel inspired, there’s all sorts of workshops to try too. Learn more about writing a short story, self-publishing or writing oral history.

Hay Bale Maze for children

Grattan St Press

There’s also lots of fun for younger readers, with a Kids Village offering story time sessions, puppet making, work shops and a Hay Bale Maze. And enjoy the vibes of the live music and street performers. Entry is $15, and free for children under 16. Author talks are $25, with discounts for multiple events, while workshops are $30.

Tim Jarvis, Pres of Book People the national peak body for booksellers, says many bookish-people are seeking a tree-change in response to the cost of living; this resulted in more cultural events popping up in the regions. A big-city literary festival is a very expensive affair, where regional festivals tend to be volunteer-organised, volunteer-run and operate on a budget. There’s something pleasingly idiosyncratic about such arrangements. And they can still attract big names. A regional festival is different; a more boutique, more intimate affair where people get together, building relationships with usual people and getting to know others.

Author Jacqui Horwood moved from Melbourne to Clunes with her partner in 2022. She now serves on the Creative Clunes Board and is presenting at Clunes Booktown this year. Books and arts are in the lifeblood of Clunes, and there are so many creative people living across the Goldfields area.

writers' panel: crime writing, fiction, romance, First Nations stories, playwriting, history.

Secret Melbourne

 

Travel: Clunes is 90 minutes-2 hours away from Melbourne by car. For those driving, there is a dedicated parking at the Clunes Showgrounds. From there, it’s a 5 min walk to the main festival gate. Or visit Clunes via public transport! From the railway station, there'll be a free shuttle bus taking visitors to the town centre. Soaking in the literary ambience at the annual Clunes Booktown Festival is clearly very easy. Thank you to Secret Melbourne.

Why the Thames Frost Fairs ended, 1814

Frost on the Thames, Samuel Collings, 1788-9.
Credit: Sharon Lathan

Using the ice for leisure activities must have had a  happy history for many Londoners. The River Thames has frozen over many times in the last 700 years, and festivals known as the Thames Frost Fairs sprang up on the river. The first recorded time people took to the frozen riv­er for organised activities was 1309, but a frozen river was unpredictable. It only froze c1 year in 10, except for 4 winters during 1649-66.

The Frost Fair of 1683
The History Press

Until removing the medieval London Bridge in 1831, there were 24 winters in which the Thames in London had frozen over. The river froze more often upstream, beyond the reach of the tide, especially over the weirs. The last big freeze of the upper Thames was 1962–3.

The Thames did not totally freeze over in the London area for centuries. Clearly the river was wider and shallower pre-1831 AND it had not yet been embanked. But mostly the river had been impeded by the Old London Bridge structure. When chunks of ice got caught between the 20 arches, it slowed the water flow, making it more likely to freeze over (for up to two months at a time).

The first big Frost Fair was in winter 1607-8. Once the Thames froze, Fair traders grabbed their chance; dozens of shops popped up overnight. Unlicensed gambling, games, drinking and dancing were held at the fairs, along with stalls selling food and drink, skittle alleys and fair-ground rides. Cheap souvenirs were available and printers set up their presses, making cards & popular sheet-music. Vendors sold a very hot alcohol made of wormwood wine and gin: purl. People enjoyed bull-baiting, puppet shows, bowling and ox-roasting. Boys played ice football games.

It was not until Jan that people started setting up camp. Pubs located on both banks of the river made a fortune during Frost Fairs. The most famous was Blanket Fair, held in 1683-4. Diariest John Evelyn wrote that whole streets of booths were set out on the Thames. He crossed the ice to dine with the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth, and again in his coach, from Lambeth to Horseferry at Millbank. The ice had now become so thick as to bear streets of booths in which they roasted meat, and diverse shops of wares eg fruit, shoes, books, toys. Hackney coaches carried fares from Somerset House and the Temple to Southwark. Fashionable men in dresses promenaded with wigs and swords, & ladies shopped briskly. The drink­ing tents were filled by female companions, dancing reels to the sound of fiddles, while others sat round large fires. Tea, coffee and edibles aplenty!

Londoners might have been rugged citizens back then, but even so, the Frost Fairs sometimes lasted only a few weeks, and only in cold wint­ers. People had to be aware of rapid thawing, and the potential loss of life and property eg in the fair of 1739 a whole band of ice sank and swallowed up tents, businesses and people. In 1789 a ship was anchored to a riverside pub in Rotherhithe, steadily tied until the ship swung in the melting night ice. The rigid cables carried away the beam, levelled the house & killed 5 people asleep.

Most were held between the C17th-early C19th in the Little Ice Age (C16th-19th), when the river most froze over, though still rarely. At that time, British winterw were more severe than now and the river was wider and slower, further impeded by 19 piers of the medieval Old London Bridge which were removed some years later.

Frost Fair on the River Thames London, 

print, 1814

The British Museum

The 1814 Fair, the worst winter in living memory, ended when the ice began to break Feb 5th, after only 4 days, resulting in deaths. Even though one of the highlights in 1814 had been an elephant being led across the ice to show the river was safe!! Nonetheless this was the last ever London Frost Fair! The Fairs stopped because A] the climate grew milder in 1815. And because of two other important events! B] Old London Bridge was demolished in 1831 and replaced with a new bridge with wider arches, allowing the tide to flow more freely; and C] the river was incrementally embanked later. All of this made the river less likely to freeze. When the new London Bridge opened in 1831, it only had 5 arches. So the Thames never froze over in London again, despite it reaching -20C in very cold winters.

As Europe began to emerge from the Little Ice Age, and globally temperatures began to rise, ice became an ever-rarer sight on the Thames. There was nearly a fair during the severe winter of 1881, when it was expected by many that a Frost Fair would again be held on the Thames. But no.

People on the frozen River Thames, Twickenham, 1881 but there was no Fair.

The National Archives,

The river last fully froze in 1963, and although some Londoners skated, it could no longer host a Frost Fair.