Off the Beaten Track in Somerset: Ice Houses

Tuesday 2 April 2024

Ice Houses

An ice house is a building used to store ice all year round. Ice was transported from lakes, ponds and rivers in winter by wheelbarrows or small carts. It was packed into the ice house and then stamped on to form a solid mass. Sometimes salt was added to aid the freezing process. When ice is packed together into a large mass, the relatively small surface area slows down rate of thawing. It was then covered with a layer of straw to insulate it. The ice would stay frozen for up to two years. Sometimes foods such as meat, fish, butter and fruit were stored in the icehouse.

The most popular location for ice houses was the bank of a stream or pond and not too far from an estate road. Almost all icehouses on country estates have an entrance, a passage, a vault and a drain (for meltwater, in the base of the vault). Most ice houses had roofs of either earth or thatch. Some ice houses had a chute in the roof above the centre of the vault to allow ice to be unloaded from above. Only a few ice houses were designed to be landscape features in the gardens of country houses.

Ice was stored in icehouses for use in the kitchens and dining rooms of stately homes. When ice was needed it was chipped out and taken to the house. It was washed and placed in wine coolers and ice buckets to cool drinks and make iced desserts. Fruit, fish and game were also laid on beds of ice to keep them fresh.

One of the first recorded ice houses in Britain was built in Greenwich, London in 1619. The idea for ice houses probably originated in France and Italy. About 3,000 ice houses were eventually built in Britain and by the mid 19th century most country houses had at least one. The majority of ice houses were built between 1750 and 1875. They were also built for commercial use, e.g. for packing and transporting fish or meat, for the manufacture of ice cream or for the sale of ice for domestic use.

From the 1840s crystal clear ice was imported into Britain from the USA, especially from Wenham Lake near Boston in Massachusetts, and later from Norway. Ice houses continued to be used until the late 19th century when ice making machines and refrigerators became available.

There are very few icehouses in Somerset that are accessible to the public. Montacute and Prior Park, which are both owned by the National Trust have ice houses. You can see the mound of the East Coker icehouse from a public footpath that runs close by. Nynehead Court has a very large ice house and the gardens are open to the public on certain days of the week but you need to book your visit in advance. There is an icehouse in a wood on the Ashton Court estate.

Montacute icehouse was built in the late 18th or early 19th century. It has a Latin inscription over the door: "in superet Glacies frondeat atque Nives", which means "freshness springs from the ice and snow." It is situated halfway between the kitchens and the ponds in the park.