Monument record 1202/1/4 - Ice House at Arley Green

An Ice House at Arley Green is marked on the on 1: 2,500 O.S. map of Cheshire. It may also have served the Old Parsonage nearby as well as Arley Hall. The entrance is blocked up so the interior condition and form of entrance not known. There is no public access to the site. For a long time, there were few ways of preserving food other than salting and pickling. From the 17th century, the idea of an Ice House was introduced to large estates. They were structures built to house blocks of ice to prevent them from melting. They were well insulated and partly underground. The ice was obtained from ponds and lakes frozen in the winter months. Sometimes fields were deliberately flooded by farmers to provide extra income.