Please forgive us bringing your attention back to the poster (on this blog at the end of last year) advertising the first skating race according to new national rules which was held in 1879 on the Thorney River. This is the conserved and restored poster, including replaced portions, held by Thorney Museum. Speed skating is known back in the Middle Ages in the north of Europe and Scandinavia in particular. Skates made of bone were used first. It seems a Scotsman deigned a skate with an iron...

I think it is a while since we have shown this sketch, created by a former resident of Thorney, Justin Ayton. The village of Thorney formed around a medieval Abbey which had been founded in AD662. That monastery was destroyed by the Vikings, but refounded around 970. A large stone church, built of stone from Barnack, was built and extended. The side view below shows it around 1320, at its largest. side view of the Abbey church, cut through the central tower In this illustration, the full...

As I drove to Whittlesey on Tuesday this week, the skating field was clearly visible just south of the Dog in a Doublet bridge. It is flooded and left in the hope that deep frosts will give a surface of ice which is thick and safe enough to use for the Whittlesey Skating Association's races. This is the modern face of "Fen Skating" which was traditional in this area, from at least the middle ages. In the nineteenth century the rules of this sort of skating were developed, particularly to...