The Ice Industry at Middleton Hall

Middleton Pool provided numerous commercial opportunities at Middleton Hall. One of the less well-known activities was the sale of the ice that formed on it. Few records of this activity at Middleton Hall have survived. The primary evidence of it is from testimonies from members of the de Hamel family, who remembered it being undertaken at the start of the 20th century. It is known with certainty that this industrial activity ceased in the latter years of the de Hamel tenancy, certainly by the early 1920s. However, there is no known evidence for when it began, which in theory could have been as early as the 18th century.

Historically, Middleton Pool would freeze with very thick ice forming every winter. Francis de Hamel, Egbert de Hamel's grandson, recounted how the ice on the Pool would be cut into large blocks with very large curved ice-saws. The blocks were then carried by a man and stored in the ice house. This ice was cut in such quantities that it not only fulfilled all the needs of the de Hamel family but also was able to be sold commercially.

Frozen Middleton Pool at Middleton Hall, 2010. Photograph taken by Betty Fox.

Multiple members of the de Hamel family recalled the presence of a very large underground ice house at Middleton Hall. It was said that one of Egbert’s greatest desires was to try to produce both roses and strawberries on Christmas Day by means of storage in the ice house. It is unknown whether he was successful. Middleton Hall Trust have been aware, since the earliest days of the Trust, of the adamant testimony of the existence of an ice house on the site. However, despite extensive searching, it has still not been found. For many years it was suspected to have been located at the eastern edge of the Glade, but this has not been categorically proven. It is known that the ice house was demolished before 1924, but this is unlikely to have removed the underground part of the structure.

Ice houses were first introduced to Britain in about 1619. However, there was a considerable expansion in their construction at manor houses in Britain in the 1700s, which was inspired by the ice houses seen in Italy. Ice houses tended to be located next to large bodies of water that would regularly freeze. In Britain, most of the structure of the ice house tended to be built underground and they were brick-lined and normally a roundish shape. At the base was a meltwater drain, which was a vital feature because if the ice sat in melted water, it would rapidly thaw. This drain fed back to the body of water. Ice houses were often called ice wells because of their considerable depth, which could be as much as 15 to 30 feet deep (4.5 to 9m) for those on manorial estates, but some larger commercial ice houses could be double that in depth.

Whilst estate-based ice houses had dominated the ice industry in the 18th century, when Britain’s natural ice industry peaked in the late 19th century, it was dominated by imports from Scandinavia. It is reported that, at that time, Norway supplied 99% of the natural ice of the British market, with the estate-based ice houses having a minimal contribution to the trade. In 1900, this changed again with the development of cheap and efficient commercial artificial ice plants.

This change to artificial ice was encouraged by the Norwegian “ice famine” of 1898 (a very warm winter), which caused supply shortages and extremely high prices in Britain. Furthermore, the public were beginning to become aware of water pollution and began to consider natural ice “dirty” against the “clean” factory-made ice. As a result, industries that depended on imported ice, such as the fishing industry, were spurred on to construct their own mechanical ice plants.

However, it was not until the 1920s that the total collapse of the natural ice trade and the end of the use of traditional estate ice houses occurred. The disruption to shipping lanes during the First World War halted the Anglo-Norwegian ice trade and permanently encouraged the change to artificial ice to the extent that, after the War, the imports from Norway were only 5% of what they had been. Furthermore, commercial refrigeration was fully established by the 1920s and the earliest domestic refrigerators were entering production, which rendered natural ice storage completely obsolete. This explains and completely correlates with the timing of the loss of the commercial ice industry at Middleton Hall and the demolition of the ice house.

Author - Debbie Jordan, Middleton Hall Volunteer.

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