Accessibility

Font Size

100% 150% 200%

Background Colour

Default Contrast
Close Reset

Publication Account

Date 1996

Event ID 1016405

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016405

Built at the mouth of one of the most important salmon rivers in Scotland, this vast icehouse was part of a complex salmon-fishing station which is a classic example of investment by an improving landowner, the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, in a local industry.

Crouched behind grey shingle ramparts are three brick-vaulted blocks that form the icehouse of 1830, which replaced an earlier version. Each block contains two subterranean chambers which would have been packed with ice collected in winter from ponds near the shore, topped up with ice 'bree' from the river. The ice would have been tipped in through the doors high in the sides of the vaults; each chamber has a sump in the floor for the water melted from the vault-high ice. During the netting season salmon would have been stored in the icehouse, prior to being packed in ice for the journey south, initially by sea, latterly by rail. This was a large operation, employing fishers, overseers, coopers and others to a rotal of 150 at the and of the 18th century (in 1792 twenty-four ships left Speymouth, London-bound with salmon). A substantial manager's house, a store and boiling house (1783) also survive.

The icehouse has been restored and now houses good displays on the salmon fishing, wild life and the former boat-building industry of Kingston,north of Garmouth on the opposite bank, founded by men from Kingsron-upon-Hull in 1784, using timber floated down the Spey from the forests of Rorhiemurcus, Glenmore and Strathspey.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Aberdeen and North-East Scotland’, (1996).

People and Organisations

References