Description

Alex Martin (surveyor) and William Simson (mason), 1825-26. Two-chambered semi-subterranean ice house, front elevation with sloping walls flanking doorway, outer compartment tunnel-vaulted, inner compartment conical. Squared rubble entrance walls with ashlar dressings to doorway, built into sloping wooded ground to north west of Pitlour House.

Statement of Interest

A good two-chambered ice house set into the hillside in wooded ground above Pitlour House (see separate listing) and largely complete making in an important survival. It is a significant architectural ancillary of the estate policies, and was essential for running a house such as Pitlour, prior to the early 20th century.

The design with entrance wall, passage and ice compartment was used widely from the 18th century onwards, though the size and shape of the ice chamber was variable. Like the stable block and parts of the walled garden the entrance wall is of rubble sandstone with ashlar dressings.

Accounts in the Register of Improvements to Entailed Estates show that the surveyor Alex Martin constructed the ice house and filled it with ice in 1825; the following year the mason William Simson laid paving in front of the structure.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77782459

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)