NHER 21430 (Building record) - Avenue House and icehouse

July 1959. Listed, Grade II.
Mid 18th century brick, 2 bays five storeys; door in second bay with pediment; sash windows; dentilled cornice gabled roof with four evenly spaced ridge stacks; west upper gable of carrstone.
No mention of interior or ice house.
See (S1) for complete listing description.

However sale particulars in (S2) state house is 17th century, extended to north.
Photograph confirms (S1) and suggests there were once two central doors, one now converted to window. So if there is 17th century work it must be entirely internal.

Ice house is described in (S2) as 'in the secluded garden', but no actual location given, but garden is small so must be near house, with 'entrance like an air raid shelter', presumably meaning a barrel vaulted tunnel, leading to a 'brick globe, plastered up'. If (S2) is accurate that interior of chamber is plastered, this has not been encountered in Norfolk before. Also 'under a mound of earth planted with trees'; ice came from 'a shallow pond nearby', which is not on OS unless the
moated site 182m to the northeast is meant.
E. Rose (NAU) 3 June 1985.

Informant [1] makes it clear the plaster did cover the interior of the main chamber. The door remains.

May 2013. Survey of icehouse.
The icehouse has the typical ovoid chamber lined with brick and carrying a dome. It has a barrel-vaulted corridor entering at mid height. The entrance is through a simple part-submerged brick wall with a segmental arch. The dome and the corridor can be seen from the outside revealing the stump of a large sycamore which was growing immediately above the chamber . The interior of the icehouse is plastered with hard hydraulic mortar as at the icehouse in Ellingham Park (NHER 25754 ). The corridor has a second doorway which has lost its lining before a former door into the chamber itself . The chamber has a brick-lined square well at its base from which the space was drained as ice melted. For further details and photos see (S3)
S. Heywood (HES), 10 July 2013.