Deepdene icehouse

Summary

C18 subterranean icehouse, built around 1769, and enlarged in the early C19.

Reasons for Designation

The C18 Deepdene icehouse is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a relatively early example of an icehouse built for a private estate

* for its intact steep-sided cup and dome chamber;

* for the early C19 addition of a larder and entrance, which help to illustrate the evolution of icehouses.

Historic interest:

* believed to have been built for the 10th Duke of Norfolk in around 1769, when the first mansion house was constructed at Deepdene;

* modified in the classical idiom by Thomas Hope, as part of his picturesque development of the park and garden at Deepdene.

Group value:

* it stands within the Grade II*- registered Deepdene park and garden, which also contains the Grade II*- listed Hope family mausoleum.

History

The Deepdene estate was first developed by the Honorable Charles Howard (1630-1713) who purchased the land in 1650. He was a keen plantsman with a strong interest in science and he laid out the first gardens at Deepdene on levelled platforms at the bottom of the dene (a natural amphitheatre). His grandson, the 10th Duke of Norfolk (1720-1786), inherited the estate and probably built the first mansion house on the site in the 1769, and it is likely that the icehouse would have been constructed around the same time.

From as early as 1600, below-ground icehouses started to be built in the grounds of country houses. They were usually brick-lined and typically with the profile of a dome and cup with some earlier examples being accessed from a hole in the apex of the dome, and having straighter sides. During the winter, ice was harvested from a pool or lake, and packed between straw layers in the icehouse. The ice would then be taken to the kitchen as needed over the course of the year to create ice-cream and frozen jellies, which were made fashionable by Charles II. By the later C18 virtually every country house had one, and their potential for preserving fresh food was also becoming understood.

The icehouse at the Deepdene was recorded in a watercolour dated 1826, as being in the drying garden and is shown as having a portico which was almost certainly added later for Thomas Hope (1769-1831), who acquired the estate in 1807, and by 1818-19 had made extensive alterations to the house. Hope employed the architect William Atkinson (1774-1839) at Deepdene, and it is possible that he had some involvement in the C19 alterations to the icehouse. It is probable that Hope’s improvements also included the larder at the base of the steps which ran under the portico, and a corridor with two sets of insulating doors, which entered the ice house at mid-height. By the C19 it was common practice for the entrance door of an icehouse to be orientated to the south to capture the morning sun, and for larders to be added. The portico of the icehouse (no longer extant) along with other picturesque structures, would have added to the visual splendour of the pleasure gardens built for this Regency arbiter of taste, who developed the landscaped park and garden at Deepdene (National Heritage List for England reference 1000143, a registered park and garden listed at Grade II*).

Hope was born in Amsterdam into a family of wealthy merchants of Scottish extraction, and travelled in Europe studying archaeological remains and building up a collection of works of art. He was also the author of an essay 'On the Art of Gardening' (1808), a novel 'Anastasius' (1819), and influential books on the decorative arts. Under his ownership the estate was enlarged and various improvements made to the landscape, the latter being recorded in a series of watercolour views by William Bartlett (1809-1854) and Penry Williams (1802 – 1885). These were used by John Britton (1771-1857) to help illustrate a volume of descriptions and sketches entitled 'An Account of the Deepdene in Surrey' (Neale 1826). Hope died in 1831 and was buried in the family mausoleum (NHLE reference 1028891, listed at Grade II*).

In 1943 most of the Deepdene park and garden were presented to the people of Dorking, and the deeds lodged with the local authority. The house and stables were demolished in 1966, and were replaced by a new headquarters for the Kuoni travel company in 1971.

Details

C18 subterranean icehouse, built around 1769, and enlarged in the early C19.

MATERIALS: red brick.

PLAN: the icehouse is set into an earth-bank, with the C19 entrance to the south. The entrance steps descend into a larder, which has a corridor leading east to the entrance to the circular ice chamber.

DESCRIPTION: the earliest section of the icehouse comprises a subterranean cup and dome shaped chamber with a flattened bottom. It measures around 4m in diameter at its widest dimension and is approximately 5m in height. It is lined in hand-made red bricks in a header bond, and the walls are nearly vertical. There is evidence of a circular opening at the top of the structure, which has now been sealed.

The C19 portion of the icehouse consists of a set of brick steps (underneath the former portico which is no longer extant), which descend northward into a brick-lined square larder which measures approximately 2m by 2m. The north wall of this room has a circular opening to provide natural light of around 0.3m in diameter. To the east of the larder there is a narrow brick-lined corridor which is around 2m high, 2m wide, and 4m in length. At each end of the corridor there is evidence of a door-frame. To the north of the corridor there is a shallow brick-lined alcove. To the east, the corridor opens directly into the C18 ice-house at its mid-point in height. The dismantled remains of a timber stair suggest that this was the C19 access, for ice collection.

Sources

Books and journals
Watkin, D, Thomas Hope: Regency Designer, (2008)
Britton, J, Plan of the Deepdene held at the Minet Library, Lambeth Archives, (1825), .

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