My One street 6 - The Ice House

Deep in shade, and now rather overgrown by Laurel trees, here is the entrance to the Estate Ice House. Situated between the walled gardens and the mansion itself, the ice house is now fenced off with barbed wire.

The thick wooden door at the bottom of the flight of stairs, some 10 ft below ground level is padlocked, so I can only surmise at the structure of this little bit of history.

Ice houses were common on country estates, the earliest dating back to the 17th C. Ice would have been harvested from the broad-water on the river at the bottom of the hill and brought to the ice house. From Victorian times - and up until the 1950s when electric refrigerators became more affordable ice was imported from Norway by ship.

From the size of the mound of earth visible and the beautiful arched brickwork of the entrance steps, this Ice house would have been a large structure. It probably has a brick lined vaulted ceiling and a concave floor with a drain in the centre for any melt-water to disperse and shelving along the walls.

The thick covering of the roof with soil and stone would enable a constant low temperature to be maintained throughout the year - so that the ice would last.

Ice houses were not only for keeping ice - many foodstuffs would also have been preserved by the low temperature - without actually being frozen. In particular meat, game and dairy products.


My One Street 1 - The Lane
My One Street 2 - Further along the lane
My One Street 3 - The Cricket Pitch
My One Street 4 - The Walled Kitchen Garden gates
My One Street 5 - The Victorian stable block