Just a few days ago Ivan sent me a link to The Guardian (UK) that a lost and largely forgotten historic ice house dating from the 1780s, has just been discovered by archeologists beneath the site of a modern housing development in Regents Park, London. From earliest historic times, people in areas with freezing winters could harvest lake, pond and river ice and store it for months, even years, to keep perishable food fresh longer. Special structures like this one were built to store it, and more are pictured here .
As modern civilisation advanced, harvesting and transporting ice for sale to population centres in warmer climates became a major industry , shipping it over considerable distances until the mid C19 when the development of technology to freeze water revolutionised food distribution. In hot climates like Australia’s it is difficult or impossible to keep perishable foods fresh for long without refrigeration, though since the invention in the late 1880s of the Coolgardie Safe householders in urban and remote areas alike found keeping food easier and safer. Passing breezes evaporate moisture from wet cloth or canvas enveloping this mesh covered cupboard, cooling the air and food inside. This Outback technology was invented in Australia, and I will write more about it another time.
Grandma Padman had an ice chest to help keep food cold, and though I don’t especially remember, she probably had a Coolgardie Safe, too. From Wikipedia : “Iceboxes had hollow walls that were lined with tin or zinc and packed with various insulating materials such as cork, sawdust, straw or seaweed. A large block of ice was held in a tray or compartment near the top of the box. Cold air circulated down and around storage compartments in the lower section. Some finer models had spigots for draining ice water from a catch pan or holding tank. In cheaper models a drip pan was placed under the box and had to be emptied at least daily. The user had to replenish the melted ice, normally by obtaining new ice from an iceman . ” Gran’s ice box was like a wooden blanket box or trunk, with a lift-up lid.
Nearly 70 years ago, between ages 2-3 probably, I remember being at Gran’s house sometimes when a huge block of fresh ice arrived. A horse drawn cart, containing ice blocks covered with heavy hessian bags, would stop on the street below the Trevallyn Rd house. Two men using heavy duty steel tongs carried a heavy ice block (guesstimate 60cm x 30cm x 30cm) about 15m up the steep laneway from the road, through the side gate and into the kitchen at the back of the house, where they placed it in the top-opening wooden ice chest. That was no mean feat, because we drove past there recently, and the laneway up beside that house really is as steep as I remember it. Being so young, I can’t remember how often the ice was ordered, or how long a block lasted, as by 1952 Gran had her first ‘frig, alleged by Mary to be the second on Trevallyn. That may be so, as our family have always been keen early-adopters. Interestingly, Michael who is a few years older, has no memory of an ice chest in his first childhood home out on a farm, 22km from Launceston. His second childhood home, from when he was 9, did have an electric ‘frig. I specify ‘electric’ because kerosene fridges were available, but they were expensive and tricky or dangerous, involving a pilot light which could go out ….