24/06/2026
Beating the heat, 18th century style ❄️
With London sweltering this week, spare a thought for how anyone kept cool, or kept food fresh, before the fridge!
The answer, for those who could afford it, was an ice house. In winter, ice was cut from frozen ponds and lakes and packed down inside a deep, brick lined chamber, mounded over with earth and sealed behind a heavy door. Insulated like this, it could last well into the following summer, ready to chill drinks and preserve food through the hottest months. By the Victorian era it was big business, with ships importing huge blocks of ice from Norway and New England to feed London's growing appetite for cold.
This survivor in Putney Park Lane is an 18th-century example, built to serve the long-vanished Gifford House. The mansion was demolished in the 1950s and replaced by the flats rising behind it, but its ice house lived on, and was given Grade II listed protection in 1955.
Swipe to see it today ➡️
View thousands more photos and videos of London's past via The London Picture Archive. https://www.londonpicturearchive.org.uk/
