An A to Z of icehouses, starting with Auckland Park

They were amazed by what they saw: a perfectly preserved, brick-lined, egg-shaped subterranean chamber. No root damage. No animal incursions. Just the three metre deep structure into which ice from the fishponds would once have been carted and stored.

Inside the Bishop Auckland Icehouse. Picture: Sarah Caldecott

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Plus, at the bottom, there were a couple of empty beer cans from when it was last sealed up in the 1970s.

Prof Chris Gerrard, of Durham University, and John Castling, of The Auckland Project, with the Auckland Park icehouse behind them on Monday

The first icehouse in this country was built for King James I in Greenwich Park in 1619 in London. He was succeeded by Charles I who was so fond of “frozen snow”, or “iced cream”, that he gave his French chef, Demarco, £500-a-year to keep the recipe secret.

Charles lost his head in 1649, and Demarco blabbed his secret. The monarchy was restored in 1661 and in 1671, Charles II celebrated its 10th anniversary with a feast that featured “one plate of white strawberries and one plate of ice cream” – the first written reference to it in English.

By the end of the century, recipe books were beginning to describe how to make ice cream, and during the 18th Century, it spread from the royal table to the feasts of wealthy men like the Bishop of Durham. The bishop must have wowed his guests – imagine the thrill of having your first frozen dessert in your mouth – in his long dining room, beneath his Zurbaran paintings, with extraordinary flavours.

There were fruit ice creams, like raspberry and strawberry but also avocado, and there were flower flavours, such as jasmine, elderflower and rose water. Vanilla was popular, but then there were savoury flavours like artichoke, truffle, foie gras, parmesan cheese and even ambergris (basically whale vomit which, apparently, has a sweet taste).

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To make ice cream you need cream, eggs and sugar. Thomas Jefferson, the third US president, became a huge fan of ice cream after encountering it on a visit to France in the 1780s. He wrote down what is now considered to be the first American recipe for ice cream, which required "two bottles of good cream”, six egg yolks and half-a-pound of sugar.

You boiled the cream, added the other ingredients, whisked briskly, and tossed in a few flavourings – Jefferson liked vanilla – and then froze it.

To freeze it, you needed ice and salt.

The Auckland Park icehouse before it was cracked open. Picture: John Burn

To get a supply of ice, the bishop built his icehouse after 1774. It is very similar to the scores of other icehouses in the district. It is built into a natural hillock (some are in manmade mounds), and has about four-fifths of its chamber below the ground. Insulating soil was heaped over the top of the chambers, along with old carpet or sailcloth, but in Auckland’s case there is a 40cm thick layer of clay over it.

The entrance tunnel to Ramside Hall's icehouse

Auckland’s is unusual in that the door opens straight into the chamber. Many icehouses are approached by a tunnel. The longer the tunnel, the thicker the insulation around the chamber: Bedale Hall has an icehouse with an entrance tunnel 17ft long and when we visited the one in Forcett Hall many years ago, the tunnel seemed as long as a cricket pitch.

The ice came from a natural beck or lake, or from a manmade pond, dug deliberately close. It was packed into the chamber between layers of straw, sawdust and old carpet for further insulation, and it would last at least six months. A good icehouse would take 18 months to thaw out completely.

A drainage system at the bottom of the chamber allowed meltwater to seep out rather than fill up the chamber and contaminate all the ice. Auckland Park’s icehouse is next to Coundon Burn into which the meltwater must have drained.

The entrance to Walworth Castle ice house, near Darlington, is in an old quarry

When the bishop wanted a cornetto, the ice was carted to the palace kitchen, where the boiling cream mixture was being prepared.

The ice was put in a bucket while the mixture was poured into a sabottiere – a metal pail with a lid. The sabottiere was then placed in the middle of the bucket of ice. It had a handle on its lid so that it could be turned to set evenly.

The key ingredient, though, was salt, which was added to the ice. As the ice melted, the salt drew the heat out of the cream, causing it to freeze.

The salt was possibly the most expensive part of the whole process. After the ice cream had been consumed, and the ice melted, the meltwater was boiled off so the salt crystallised out for use another day. However, if salt leeched out of the ice bucket into the sabottiere, the ice cream had a horrid taste.

As ice cream became fashionable, ice was imported from Scandinavia and stored first in icehouses and then, from the 1840s, in ice chests, which were made of wood but lined with tin or zinc. The richest people would get a slab of ice delivered daily to go in their ice chests – far better than storing it in a manky, rat-riddled hole in the ground.

The Yafforth icehouse, near Northallerton, in the middle of this Google StreetView

And so icehouses fell out of fashion – but 200 years later these strange subterranean chambers still fascinate. A couple of years ago, Memories readers sent in details, and pictures, of their local icehouses. Here, for the first time, is a list of all those we know about:

Surviving: Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland; Beamish Hall (the only icehouse thought to be haunted, by “the grey lady”); Bedale Hall (with a 17ft entrance tunnel); Blackwell Grange, Darlington; Brancepeth Castle (on the golf course, later converted into a septic tank), Burn Hall at Sunderland Bridge (beside the third tee of Durham City Golf Course); Carlton Hall, near Aldbrough St John (the hall was demolished in 1919 but the icehouse remains beside Aldbrough Beck); Constable Burton Hall, near Leyburn (Grade II listed, it has a clay-lined manmade pond in front of it and possibly a paved path for pushing barrows of ice along); Durham (known as Shipperdson’s ice house, near the Count’s House. There are two others nearby built in the banks of the Wear); Etherley (recently cleared out, believed to have belonged to the Red House mansion which has now been demolished); Forcett Park, near Aldbrough St John (in a large manmade mound, with a long entrance tunnel, next to a lake); Gibside (just off the terrace, with a slit in its locked door so the resident bats can get out; documents suggest it could have been built in 1748 for £5); Greencroft, near Lanchester (the only icehouse known to have two doors, one north, one south); The Hermitage, Chester-le-Street (in the hospital grounds); Hornby Castle, near Bedale (had three, which were made in the 1760s when the landscape was designed by Lancelot “Capability” Brown); Hurworth (built into the riverbank behind the Dovercourt house on the green); Ramside Hall near Durham; Raby Castle; Stanwick Park, near Aldbrough St John (three icehouses here, two of which are apparently in the Brigantes’ earthworks, and a third is beneath a deerhouse); Urpeth Hall, near Chester-le-Street (“large and well-preserved”, according to its Grade II listing); Walworth Castle (brick-lined, good condition, about 8ft deep); Whitworth Park, near Spennymoor; Wynyard Hall (were two but only one can be found now); Yafforth Manor House, near Northallerton (clearly visible from the B6271).

The deerhouse at Stanwick is reputedly over an icehouse. Picture: Peter Giroux

Lost: Halnaby Hall, near Croft-on-Tees (mansion demolished, but there’s still Icehouse Hill on the OS map); Kiplin Hall, near Catterick; Seaham Hall (where there is an Icehouse Dene and Icehouse Bank but no icehouse); Pierremont (in the denes), Polam Hall and Blackwell Hill (two), all in Darlington.

Can you add to our list?

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