Ice-House at Hawley Manor, Dartford
During the spring of 1992, Mr. Bernard Hills of Beulah Management, the owners of Hawley Manor, Sutton-Hone, Dartford, informed Chris Baker of Dartford District Archaeological Group of his intention to refurbish the ice-house in the grounds of the manor, and the group were invited to carry out a survey beforehand.
Drawings that had been made showed that although most of the features could be ascertained, due to accumulated deposits of rubbish the depth of the well was unknown.
It seemed a good opportunity for D.D.A.G. to examine and record this historic example of Victorian domestic building, and Chris asked Peter Muldoon and Ron Harman to carry out a midweek project to complete a survey.
Consequently, during the late summer of 1992, with collaboration from an estate gardener Ken Goodwin who is also a group member, work was commenced.
Firstly, all the collected rubbish from the well was removed by shovel, bucket, and rope hoist which amounted to approximately 8.5 cubic meters.
The debris by its nature must have begun to accumulate in the 1930s, and was obviously for some years used as an occasional extra refuse tip by the earlier estate gardeners, by virtue of the amount of flower pot shards uncovered. Apart from these, the rest of the recovered rubbish was also un-noteworthy, indeed a few solitary bottles of early proprietary use, only were of any interest.
The ice-house itself is a type A (Niven Robertson Classification) which is a cup and dome construction with the cup below ground level.
Plan.
The whole walled roof structure was of mortared brick all bonded but with bricks of random length up to 200mm, and of Victorian date, except for the drainage sump at the bottom of the well which was lined with 17 courses of Tudor bricks, which one can assume must have been, at the time of construction, recovered and re-used from earlier Tudor workings on the site. (The Tudor Pigeon House and perimeter wall comprising similar bricks is only 5.0m away from the Ice-House - both remain).
The very bottom of the structure - the base of the sump was seen to be composed of chalk. The platform at the junction of the wall and sump top showed remains of some further Tudor bricks set into clay puddling.
For safety considerations, it was not possible to excavate to determine the thickness of the wall or to ascertain whether or not a cavity wall was provided, but the dome roof was examined where it was found to have no cavity and a thickness of brick including some rubble of 0.330m.
At the time of writing, (Oct 1993) refurbishment of the Ice-House is about to commence.
The building is not shown on a tithe map of 1842 but is shown on an O.S. map of 1880.
At the construction of the A2 Dual carriageway which bounds the site of Hawley Manor, the erection of boundary posts, presumably unknowingly, caused the dome of the ice-house to be pierced by an oak post, which is still evident, and enters the roof to a depth of 0.4m.
The Ice-House at nearby Darenth Grange (1 mile) is of very similar construction to that at Hawley Manor, and was recently cleared of rubbish by Kent Groundwork Trust. No dimensions were taken but depth appears to be greater than that at Hawley.
We wish to thank Bernard Hills and Partners for their cooperation in this survey and for their work on drawing presentation.
National Grid Reference T.Q. 546721.
Ron Harman
Dartford District Archaeological Group.
