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Jane Austen (1775-1817)
Summer Refreshment
English author Jane Austen completed her best-known novels in the early 1800s, at a country house she shared with her mother and sister. The family had servants, a beautiful garden, a large kitchen and a cellar to keep foods cool. But Austen enjoyed even finer things at the home of her wealthier brother Edward. His large estate came equipped with an icehouse, so he could serve chilled treats like ice cream on hot summer days.
Godmersham Park, Kent, home of Jane Austen's brother Edward
Inside an Icehouse:
Before electric refrigeration, a well-to-do English family with a large estate could have ice cut from frozen ponds in winter and packed into an icehouse: a sunken, shaded shelter that kept the ice cold into the summer months.
Diagram:
A layer of earth covered the roof, for insulation.
A vaulted or domed roof covered a deep underground chamber.
A drain at the bottom carried melt-water away.
Some icehouses had a hatch on top, for pouring ice in.
Entrances had both inner and outer doors to keep out warm air.
Icehouses typically stood in shady areas, protected from sun.
Icehouses became popular in England in the 1700s, but in Asia they are thought to date back more than 2,000 years. This traditional mud-brick icehouse, or yakhchal, preserved ice in the desert heat of central Iran. |