The Ice House Cometh

Any 18th Century English landed gentry worth their salt (so to speak) had an ice house. This one is 70ft deep and originally had a thatched roof. The National Trust are restoring it. The ice packed in straw would stay solid for about three years, apparently. You entered through the "igloo" tunnel and tried not to fall down the cone-shaped pit inside.

If you could offer ice cold drinks in the height of summer, you were the bees knees in Regency times. "Capability" Brown and all that.