Crathes Castle Estate, Lade And Ice-pond

NO79NW 8.11 7315 9702 to 7334 9702

For (downstream) pond, dams and sluices (NO 7413 9674 to NO 7424 9639) and possible ice houses (NO 7414 9634 and NO 7416 9633), see NO79NW 8.13 and NO79NW 8.14 respectively.

NO 731 970 to NO 733 970. In 1996 the ice-pond and lade on Crathes Castle Estate were cleaned and recorded. This was carried out in two stages: an evaluation followed by the cleaning of the entire system by Scottish Conservation Volunteers.

The lade is 138m long above and 40m long below the pond. It was deliberately channelled from an existing stream and the sides lined with stones. When completely emptied, the pond measured 10m N-S by 8m W-E. The northern half of the base of the pond was flat and floored with grey clay. This clay was either in situ or, more probably, imported to the site from elsewhere on the estate. The southern half of the pond was of yellowish grey clay, covered with small stones. This half sloped gently upwards towards a slide, cut from natural rock, to the SE of the pond. This slide would have enabled the ice workers to haul the blocks of ice to the track above the pond and hence to the ice-houses. The pond walls were constructed of fine drystone walling in good condition, with the exception of the W wall. There was no wall on the S side of the pond, the slope carrying on upwards out of the pond. The water entrance and exit features were also exposed. Where the stream enters the pond at the W side, the amount of loose stone found indicated that there would have been a small dam, or that the wall would have been intact, to allow the water to enter the pond at a higher level than it does today. At the E side there is a pottery plug surrounded by the remains of a coffer dam, which stopped the water leaving the pond by its lower drain, allowing the ice to build up to a usable thickness. The fill within the pond was very uniform, and the artefacts were fairly evenly distributed throughout the fill.

In general, the type of material found indicated that after the functional use of the pond ceased in the mid-19th century, the pond was used as a recreational site for the inhabitants of the castle. A complete ice manufacturing system - the upper dam, sluice, lade, pond, slide, lower dam and ice-houses - is present at Crathes Estate and the survival of this system in such an intact condition appears to be rare.

Sponsors: National Trust for Scotland, Phillips Petroleum.

K Sabine 1997.

(Location cited as NO 7315 9702 to NO 7334 9702: name as Crathes Castle Estate, lade and pond).

The presence of a complete ice-manufacturing system (upper dam, sluice, lade, pond, shute, lower dam and ice-houses) has been noted at Crathes, such a combination of features being rare at Scottish coutry houses as ice was more usually gathered from a natural pond. The system at Crathes is situated on an E-facing slope of fairly gentle gradient, the subsoil being a stony till derived from granite and granitic gneiss.

At Crathes, it would have been possible to control the amount of water entering the lade and pond by means of a sluice-gate (probably on the E side of the upper dam) allowing the pond to fill slowly and thus freeze more effectively. The water was held back in the pond by the coffer but was allowed to overflow through the plug into a culvert in the lower dam to prevent the dam from overfilling. When the time came to cut the ice, the sluice would have been closed and the ice sawn into blocks to be hauled up the shute into the ice house. If the pond required cleaning, it could be emptied by removing the coffer dam (or possibly by raising a sluice gate built into this) and drained through the lower dam.

NMRS, MS/848/12.

Niether the lade nor the pond is noted (nor is the pond depicted) on the OS 1:2500 map of 1969. The stream that flows into the lade is noted as issuing at NO 7301 9707.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 8 December 2000.