Faithlegg Ice House Archives - Waterford Harbour Tides & Tales

We often fear what we don’t know, have never experienced or what is new and different. As free ranging children of the 1970’s one of the more mysterious and fear inducing encounters must have been in what was then called the “Oak Woods” but what is now part of Faithlegg Golf Club.

The Oak Wood was part of the Cornelius Bolton’s Faithlegg estate planted in the late 18th C. It was partially felled when the estate was sold to the De La Salle brothers in 1936 and they in turn cleared the last of it during the Emergency. A plantation of pine trees had grown thick and dense over the area by the time I was a youngster.

Part of the old roadway network in the community took you through the woods, which traversed the Marsh and the Glen. It continued via a laneway, skirting the boundary on the right of the present Park Rangers football club, into the woods. The road twisted and turned through a canopy of densely planted pine, that allowed precious little light in and the broken dagger like lower branches tended to keep you on the main tracks. As you emerged out, you came to the pill that separated Faithlegg from Ballycanvan which was crossed by a flat, functional and nondescript bridge and we could walk to Woodlands avenue and on as we pleased.

The Ice House as it is today, Blenheim (L) and the Island is the background

On one such venture we came across a strange squat building that was off the path, but was situated in a clearance that allowed the sun to shine down and ferns, briars, moss and furze to grow. Such discoveries generally filled me with a sense of excitement and curiosity. But this building was something beyond my normal experience, beyond my comprehension and it made me cautious. As we walked around the structure we came to a dark and foreboding doorway, into which you could peer, but no light penetrated. Stealing close there was pushing and shoving, jerring and jostling, dares and nervous laughter.

Faithlegg Ice House looking east

At the doorway a dank smell filled our nostrils. Ivy clad and with cobwebs abounding we tried to clear these to allow more light to penetrate. What we could now faintly make out was an arched tunnel which led to a square hole in a back wall. Discussions were had, dares were made, until eventually one by one we stepped inside. Within the edges of red brick were smoothed with age and they curved in an arch. Stealing forward towards the end wall we were grough to a halt by the chill and darkness. Should we enter this? Feeling inside we touched nothing but cool air, a void, a black hole if ever there was one.

the passage way and the chamber door at the rear

“What the hell is it lads?” And from there our imaginations ran riot and with it the fears again. Was there something or someone lurking within?. How deep was it?, how far did it go on? and then a shout and a mad scramble with hearts thumping and our heads filled with irrational fears we barged towards the safety of the daylight.

Community notice

Once calmed by the freedom of the fresh air we began speculating again and of course our imaginations ran riot. The very familiar topic of the Faithlegg tunnels came to the fore, surely it was a secret tunnel connecting to the old church, the castle or the big house. Maybe it even ran the whole way to the Hurthill or the Wexford side of the harbour.

My father of course had another twist on it, a dungeon where the bold children of Faithlegg were kept or servants that were found to be not doing their job right at the big house. The story when related to the lads got serious consideration and it had great appeal. Eventually when we got back there, it was with matches and newspaper and more familiar now, we marched up to the building and entered without hesitation. However we were struck dumb by the pit that was exposed when the paper was lit, and the depth and extent of a pit was exposed. If any of us had been foolhardy to go through the hole previously we might have easily broke a limb in the fall, and we certainly would not have made it back out without a ladder. I often shuddered at the thought of being stuck in that pit.

I’m not certain when I first learned that it was an Ice house used by Faithlegg House. The purpose of the Ice House was to store perishable food and to have ice available in the presentation of food and chilled wines. In effect if the larder was the fridge of the time, the ice house was the freezer. Items such as fish, poultry and game could be suspended from the ceiling. These would not freeze as such, but be chilled to prolong their freshness. They are uncommon, an intriguing design and the Faithlegg structure is beautifully preserved and an excellent example. I’ve written about the workings of it before.

Today the Ice House is a feature on Faithlegg golf course. And most recently it has been added to the story of the hotel as it is used as a brand for their in-house larger brewed by Metalman Brewery. When asked recently in an interview for a corporate video, shot by Hi-Lite TV, which will be used to showcase the Faithlegg Hotel internationally what my favorite feature of Faithlegg was, I had no hesitation. Still a boy, filled with a wild imagination and curiosity, even the reality of it does not detract. The Ice House is and will always be my own personal favourite part of Faithlegg.

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There’s nothing as fickle as a market I guess. Products that go from boom to bust in a few short years, or less today when we think of technology. In the past Waterford, along with many other ports traded in a commodity that was considered an essential for the food industry, Ice. It was a market that reigned for less that sixty years but there are echoes of it in the harbour still.

My interest in Ice stemmed from finding the Faithlegg Ice House as a child. This old structure was probably built at the same time as Faithlegg House, 1783, and used by the Boltons for impressing party guests during the summer with cooled drinks, sorbets and ices at a time when it was impossible for most people except in winter. It could also store meat, poultry and fish. Such Ice House designs dated from the 16th C at least and were based on the reality that Ice, once gathered into a cool, dry spot, compacted together and allowing for the run off to drain away below, would keep for months or even years.

Entrance chamber to Faithlegg Ice house

Ice House on Golf Course of Faithlegg House

The other Ice House in the area, was about a mile away, via an old roadway that ran through Faithlegg to Ballycanvan. You crossed the now removed bridge at Faithlegg Pill into Ballycanvan and down to Jack Meades via the woodlands road. This is a commercially sized Ice House and even today is an impressive structure.

No one seems to know the date it was built. I find it interesting that when travel writer and social commentator Arthur Young visited in 1796 and again in 1798 that he failed to mention it, suggesting it is a later build. Its location is to protect it from the sun, and it has a double wall to the south west which would have further insulated it, The original entry point was nearer the roof, the current access point is a more modern feature, Some have suggested it served a similar function to its smaller neighbour, providing for the several big houses in the locality such as Ballycanvan, Mount Druid, Brook Lodge, Blenheim etc.

A third example is an “Ice Box” which Pat Murphy from Cheekpoint helped me locate recently. The box is a stone and mortar circular structure about 15ft diameter. Access was via the roof and it is built into the western bank of the river Barrow on the Wexford side, above Great Island. Pat could remember the name clearly and also stories of the paddle steamer stopping in the river below it, and boxes of iced salmon being removed to the ship for transport to New Ross and, he presumed, export.

Ceiling doorway to the Icebox

Icebox, hidden away in the bank of the River Barrow

The Ice used in such structures was originally gathered from frozen streams, but at the time that Faithlegg was built a new technique had emerged. Due to the enormous resources, particularly man power, such houses had, it was a practice to flood a flat area of land close to a stream during a cold snap. I’ve found what I imagine to be the Faithlegg ice field below the current Park Rangers ground only recently. Unfortunately none of the older residents can confirm the theory however. Such streams and flat fields are features of the other sites too.

In America a new business emerged in the early 1800’s which became known as the Ice trade and the commodity had extended to Norway by the 1850’s. American Ice had made its way to Britain but was not considered commercially viable, the merchants preferring the locally sourced material, despite its poorer quality. However a rise in temperatures seems to have impacted the home grown trade, and initially speculator merchants travelled northwards to source ice, but it really picked up once the Norwegians saw the potential. Ice was cut into blocks in Norway and transported to Ireland and throughout Europe. The blocks were put aboard ships, insulated with saw dust, to prevent fusing together, and then transported to ports. Merchants tended to store the ice in purpose built buildings or basements and then disperse it as required.

I had speculated as such some years back at a Barony of Gaultier Historical Society talk that I gave in the fishing industry of the harbour. It came as a relief to me thereafter when Tommy Deegan on the Waterford History Group facebook page posted the following:
“In Jan. 1864 Messrs. O’Meara and Brennan owners of a large warehouse in Bridge St. purchased 100 tons of ice from a Scandinavian ship and reloaded the ship with cattle fodder. They covered the ice with a large quantity of sawdust in the warehouse, which preserved the ice until summer when it could be sold at a large profit.”

Subsequently I have discovered that newspapers of the time are full of ads and other coverage of the trade by merchants and fish mongers in cities such as Dublin, Belfast and Cork. Their businesses were forced to close at the start of WWI when the sea trade was curtailed. After the war the new technology of refrigeration was the issue and soon the trade would be consigned to history. Only echos now remain in the harbour, but the echoes are significant, especially to the curious.

Postscript: The Barony Echo, newsletter of the Barony of Gaultier Historical Society carries a brief mention of ships arriving to Passage East from Nova Scotia carrying Ice for the cellars of Waterford in their most recent edition.

Since publication a new initiative in Lismore Co Waterford has come to my attention. I was aware of the big house Ice House at Lismore but not two commercial sized houses under one roof on the Fermoy road, Two pieces here: A blog from Waterford in Your Pocket: http://www.waterfordinyourpocket.com/lismore-ice-houses-to-be-preserved/ And a press piece from the Examiner: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/19th-century-ice-houses-to-be-preserved-390925.html

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Thanks to Pat Murphy and Liam Hartley for their help with this piece. Also Tommy Deegan on the Waterford History Group.
Ref: Buxham. T. Icehouses. 2008. Shire Publications. Buckinghamshire.

Tag: Faithlegg Ice House

The Faithlegg “dungeon”

Ice – Waterford’s forgotten trade