Field Visit
Date April 1984
Event ID 1083060
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1083060
This ice-house is situated l00m NNW of the Cherry Park court of offices (No. 191) on the slope between the A819, the former military road to Dalmally, and an estate road. It was built at a cost of £225 in the winter of 1785-6, under the direction of William Stothard, to replace an unsatisfactory ice-store in the casemates at Inveraray Castle (No. 184) (en.1). Building-material was probably obtained from a small quarry immediately to the NW.
The building comprises a circular shell of lime-mortared rubble, originally harled externally, with an overall diameter of 6.5m, enclosing a domed vault of brick. The upper part of the dome, which is now exposed, was formerly covered by a conical slated roof supported on the outer wall-head, and may originally have been thatched. An entrance-passage projecting for 1.7m to the NE rises above the general level of the wall-head. Its outer door had a massive schist lintel, now displaced, and the rubble walls carry a segmental brick vault. There is a step up to the inner doorway, which is paved and lintelled with slabs of schist. The chamber was probably egg-shaped in vertical section, the maximum diameter being3.7m, but it has been deliberately infilled at threshold-level, leaving a height to the apex of 2.9m. The inner lining is of bricks set radially, and was originally plastered.
RCAHMS 1992, visited April 1984
