Survey Data

Reg No

15401113


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Social, Technical


Original Use

Icehouse


Date

1780 - 1800


Coordinates

234437, 261252


Date Recorded

05/11/2004


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Pair of detached icehouses on polygonal plans, built c.1790, associated with Tristernagh House (now ruinous). Now disused. Icehouse to south has brick barrel-vaulted interior with evidence of rubble stone porch to front, now collapsed. Blocked entrance to south. Rubble stone facing to entrance front with square-headed opening with brick surround. Icehouse to north has domed brick interior with rubble stone porch with segmental-headed doorcase (opening within top half of chamber) on northwest side. Located adjacent to Tristernagh Abbey/House.

Appraisal

Icehouses were common structures associated with large demesnes particularly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They played an important functional role in the preservation of food in the era before refrigeration. The domed and barrel-vaulted interiors are impressive examples of early engineering and are of technical merit. These icehouse form part of a group of structures associated with Tristernagh Abbey/House, a medieval foundation apparently converted into a dwelling house in the late eighteenth-century but abandoned shortly thereafter.