Ice-house at 7a Cleveland Row

Summary

A subterranean ice-house located in front of Rose Cottage, 7a Cleveland Row and associated with Cleveland Pools, the oldest existing outdoor public pool site in Western Europe.

Reasons for Designation

The ice-house at 7a Cleveland Row is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a good survival of an ice-house from the early C19 providing ancillary functions to the nearby Cleveland Pools,
* for its intactness and the quality of its construction, being of a good size and made of coursed bath stone.
Historic interest:
* for its functional association with Cleveland Pools (listed Grade II*), the oldest existing outdoor public pool site in Western Europe.

Group value:
* as an ancillary structure associated with the functioning and status of Cleveland Pools in the early C19.

History

Ice pits are known to have existed since medieval times, but their design took a more architectural turn in the C17 when the landed gentry adopted them as a means of preserving food, cooling drinks and for medicinal purposes. By the C19 ice began to be traded on an international scale and ice-houses took on a commercial form. They were eventually made obsolete by the invention of the refrigerator in the early C20. They are typically subterranean with a cylindrical or conical shape and thick brick or stone lined walled packed with straw or sawdust which provides thermal regulation. At their base they have a drain to remove melt water.

The ice-house at 7a Cleveland Row is a type described as a ‘circular chamber’ and is thought to be associated with Cleveland Pools. It may predate the pools and be associated with the nearby grounds of Bathwick Villa, however this cannot be determined.

Cleveland Pools is a Grade II* listed open bathing pool located on the bank of the river Avon in the City of Bath, which is famous for its C18 Georgian architecture and town planning. Originally known as the ‘Pleasure Baths’, they are thought to be the oldest existing outdoor public pool site in Western Europe. There are many cartographic depictions of Bath, Cleveland Pools are shown on maps dating from the 1818 onwards but none appear to show the ice-house.

The original lease for the land for Cleveland Pools was granted in 1809 by the Duke of Cleveland to William Bourne, in partnership with the Messrs Austin and Newport. A subscription list was opened in 1815 and the same year the Pools opened for business, as evidenced by an article in the Bath weekly Chronicle on July 20th 1815. However, the land on which the ice-house is located was not included in this original lease of land. In 1819 a row of houses designed by John Pinch the Elder, called Hampton Row, were constructed on the road to the east. This land did not extend as far as the entrance to the Pools and, again, did not include the land on which the ice-house is located.

In 1827 the lease for the Pools was purchased by Reverend Race Godfrey. At this time an additional lease was taken out for the land on which the ice-house is now constructed, with agreement that houses would be built. This later became Cleveland Row.

It is known that Godfrey operated the Baths for many decades and expended £1200 on refurbishments including an entrance Lodge on Cleveland Row, called Rose Cottage. The ice-house is within the gardens of this lodge and therefore it may be that it was built, by Godfrey, during his period of tenure in order to improve the provisions and offer at the pools. An 1855 Bath rate book identifies Godfrey as being the owner of Cleveland Baths, Cleveland Cottage and an ice-house, confirming that by this date the ice-house had been constructed. Legal documents from 1861 relating to the transfer of the Baths to Reverend Dr Race Godfrey, which were complicated and dragged on until 1871, include a description of the pools and again mentions an ice-house. The conveyance of Cleveland Baths was formalised in 1872 with a ground rent of £30 to be paid to the Duke of Cleveland’s Trustees.

Further houses were constructed on Cleveland Row in 1875-1878, with Rose Cottage, the entrance lodge to the pools, remaining in existence until the mid-C20. The first edition OS map from 1886 clearly shows the lodge with what can be presumed to be access steps to the ice-house within its garden. The ice-house itself, however, is not labelled.

Cleveland Pools passed, on the death of Reverend Race Godfrey in 1872, to his son Daniel Race Godfrey. In 1887 the Pools were purchased by the Bath College Company, an organisation formed to develop technical education in the City. Private ownership of the land ended in 1899 when the pools were closed due to the liquidation of the Bath College Company. Bath Corporation Waterworks committee formally took ownership of Cleveland Pools in 1900 for the sum of £100.

In 1991 the lodge, Rose Cottage, was replaced with a modern building which remains on the site today. It would appear from fabric analysis that at this time the northern wall of the ice-house was buttressed externally. The main body of the ice-house now sits partly below the drive to Rose Cottage, 7a Cleveland Row, and partly under the public footpath and highway.

Oral history records that in the 1980s the ice-house was used as a social space for local residents of Hampton Row and Cleveland Row. It is also understood that in more recent years the ice-house has been informally used as storage space by tenants. It is likely during one of these periods that the lower parts of the ice-house were infilled with soil to create the current, much higher floor level which masks any potentially surviving features at the ice chambers base, such as drains.

Details

A subterranean ice-house located in front of Rose Cottage, 7a Cleveland Row and associated with Cleveland Pools, the oldest existing outdoor public pool site in Western Europe.

MATERIALS: The ice chamber is constructed of coursed rough Bath stone blocks. The external wall to the north is either coursed Bath stone or reconstituted stone.

PLAN: A subterranean circular domed ice chamber with entrance passage and access steps to the north.

EXTERIOR: The ice-house is a subterranean structure, located approximately 5m to the south of 7a Cleveland Row and is accessed via the lightwell of that property. Externally at lightwell level a buttress wall, built in 1991 and constructed of squared uncoursed Bath stone blocks (possibly reconstituted), is visible. An open access portal is located to the east with single width opening constructed in Bath stone.

INTERIOR: Access is via a single width passage with corbelled roof structure leading down three stone steps, set at a 45 degree angle, culminating in a small square opening into the ice chamber.

The ice-house is a domed space approximately 6m in diameter constructed of coursed rough Bath stone blocks with a central circular stone ventilation opening at the apex (now blocked by modern road construction above). Just above the current floor level are regular rectangular putlog holes, likely to have once held a floor or shelving. Several iron hooks are located at head height around the structure. The floor is made up of compacted soil under modern loose laid C19 shallow rectangular frog bricks. The soil infilling the lower half of the ice chamber is likely to be a later insertion, and masks any surviving features at its base. A modern metal grille and surround has been attached to the inside face of the access passage.

Sources

Books and journals
Buxbaum, T, Icehouses (1992),
Beamon, S P, Roaf, S, The Ice-Houses of Britain (1990),
Watts, Linda, Swimming Through History: The Cleveland Pools (2022),
The Cleveland 'Pleasure Bath's': Secluded Pleasures in a Spa City. in Bath History, ,Vol. 15, (2022), 48-57
Ice-houses [typical profiles] in Current Archaeology, ,Vol. 9, (1987), 294-296

Websites
SPAB From the Archive: Ice houses, accessed 20 August 2024 from https://www.spab.org.uk/news/archive-ice-houses

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