| Description | The remains of an ice house lie on the eastern edge of the Grey Stone Pasture (PRN 687) against the ha ha of the 18th century parkland (PRN 4000). The chamber or pit is partially below ground with the entrance facing south. By the 18th century the tradition of constructing ice houses suggested that the entrances should face north and the structure should be sheltered by trees. In this case neither was followed as the plantation that now abutts the ice house was not extended until the early 19th century. Equally interesting is that a larger, above ground ice house (PRN 8997) was built to the south west of Harewood House, near the Stables in 1761. It stands to reason that another would not have been required out in the parkland unless it was used in association with the Temple of Venus (SE 3182 4294), which lay to the south east. The area in which the ice house had been built remained as agricultural land until the late 18th century when it was then emparked. Use of ice houses in association with garden buildings is not uncommon and has been found elsewhere such as at West Wycombe Park, Buckinghamshire, where the Temple of the Winds was built in 1759 above an icehouse. Similarly, at Stowe, Buckinghamshire, Queen Caroline's monument by Sir John Vanbrugh was in 1764 sited over an existing icehouse (Buxbaum 1998, 25). As the Temple of Venus at Harewood was built in 1771, the ice house may have been built in tandem dating it, provisionally, to the late 18th century. |