Sites and Monument Record: Callendar House Ice-house (SMR 60)
Description
The ice-house stands prominently 130 m N of the house it served. The tall sandstone frontage is topped by a pediment, below which the doorway faces W. This orientation is due to the wish to display the building as a landscaped feature of the park, and in its location it would have been just as easy to face it N. It is built into the side of a disused gravel quarry. The antechamber is 3.65 m long and leads into the circular ice-chamber, 3.66 m in diameter, with its domed roof. Ice-chamber and antechamber are built of brick. Originally the ice-pit was 3.65 m deep from the floor of the antechamber, and given the gravel drift geology was presumably self-draining. The ice chamber was filled with gravel and other loose material by the Department of Amenity and recreation to bring it up to ground level, and it was subsequently used as a goat house. The antechamber had a door at either end, plus a third about mid way along. A small loch and ornamental canal lie 200 m to the S and would have provided ample ice. In September 1789 William Forbes received information on ice-houses elsewhere being intent upon erecting one at Callendar. These plans were made in "great haste" (GD 171,359/15).
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