View from north

Description View from north

Date 24/7/2001

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number E 15711 CN

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 769033

Scope and Content Ice House, Balmoral Estate, Aberdeenshire, from the north The ice house was built into a hillside, and constructed underground as a brick-lined pit approximately 9m deep. The pit was built in the shape of a blunt cone with the point facing downwards, and covered by a domed superstructure with a north-facing door. The house was used to keep blocks of ice, cut from ponds or rivers on the estate in the winter and stacked between layers of straw, for use in the summer. Besides providing ice for use in the castle to chill wine or food, and to make ice creams and other puddings, the ice house itself was used to chill or even freeze food, and formed an excellent larder for the preservation of fish, game, poultry, and butter. It was especially used to hang fresh meat, particularly venison, before the estate's game larders were built c.1852 by Prince Albert. In 1852 Prince Albert and Queen Victoria bought the Balmoral estate as a Highland retreat from the stresses of London life. They originally leased Balmoral Castle, a small 15th-century Deeside castle that had been reconstructed in the 1830s for Sir Robert Gordon, before building a new, larger castle at their own expense in 1853-5. This ice house was probably built in the 18th century to serve the earlier castle. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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