Fen skating

Fen skating is a traditional form of ice skating in the Fenland of England. The Fens of East Anglia, with their easily flooded meadows, form an ideal skating terrain. Bone skates have been found in the area dating back to the medieval period. It is not known when the first skating matches were held, but by the early nineteenth century they had become a feature of cold winters in the Fens. The golden age of fen skating was the second half of the nineteenth century, when thousands of people turned out to watch such legendary skaters as Larman Register, William "Turkey" Smart, (William) "Gutta Percha" See, and brothers George 'Fish' Smart (1858-1909) and James Smart. Members of the Bury Fen Bandy Club published rules of the game in 1882, and introduced it into other countries. The National Skating Association was set up in Cambridge in 1879 and took the top few fen skaters to the Netherlands, where they had a brief moment of international glory with James Smart becoming Britain's only ever world champion speed skater. The twentieth century saw a decline in the popularity of fen skating. While it is not known when and how metal-bladed skates were introduced into Britain from the continent, where they had been in use since the 13th century or earlier, in the fens metal skates were in use by the seventeenth century; before this people had attached sharpened animal bones to their feet to travel on ice. William Fitzstephen described skating on the Thames in the 12th century. Diarists Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn both recorded seeing skating on the canal in St. James's Park in London during the winter of 1662. Pepys wrote "...over to the Parke (where I first in my life, it being great frost, did see people sliding with their skeats which is a very pretty art)...". As a recreation, means of transport and spectator sport, skating in the Fens was popular with people from all walks of life. Racing was the preserve of workers, most of them agricultural labourers.