Although the tidal Thames could no longer freeze over after the opening of the new London Bridge, severe winters could still play havoc with the working of the port.
Further down the river, photographers captured the bleak landscape of the ice-filled river. In Greenwich, local optician W. Hudson photographed the ice in Greenwich Reach.
The ice was so bad that the river ambulance service to the smallpox ships in Long Reach was disrupted.
Smallpox patients were marooned in London for over two weeks before they could be taken to the hospital ships. Had an epidemic broken out at the time, London would have faced a grave crisis.
The Pool of London in the frost, 1895, by Arthur Robertson. © NMM
