WOODEN GARDENER'S HOUSE, ICEHOUSELB10472
Circa 1820. Domed, semi-subterrannean icehouse set into sloping ground with segmental-arched, squared-rubble wall to N elevation containing segmental-arched polished ashlar entrance doorway to anti-chamber. Anti-chamber on NE side; hatch to internal chamber in sloping wall. Roughly squared and coursed red rubble to interior. Turf roof over domed vault.
A good domed ice-house situated in the grounds of the former gas works (now called Gardener's House) in what originally was within the Wooden policies. The arched entrance wall and handsome ashlar door architrave are particularly notable features. The structure is typical of many built in the later 18th and early 19th centuries with the entrance in the upper half of the chamber which would have allowed the lower half to be filled with ice. The lower half of the walls may have a double thickness with cavity between whilst the dome may be single thickness as there appears to be a change in the pointing at the springing of the dome.
The precise date of the icehouse is diffcult to establish. From the appearance of the house and the icehouse it seems likely that they were built at the same time. Wooden House was described as 'modern and in excellent repair' and 'having well stocked gardens and suitable offices' in 1826, indicating that the house and icehouse were built by that date.
The house was in the hands of the Walker family from 1757. Robert Walker inhertited the estate in 1787 and he probably rebuilt the house in its present form about 1820. It was advertised for sale in 1826 and was bought the following year by Robert Haldane Scott of Kinloss. Several years later Scott left Scotland for Jamaica and passed the estate to his brother George Scott who was a a captain in the Royal Navy. It passed to a third brother in the early 1860s and thereafter to his three unmarried sisters.