Worcester News of 1st August 2023, shows a picture of Councillor Matthew Jenkins next to the collapsed wall in Lansdowne Crescent (follow link to Google Maps image of the wall). The collapsed wall was owned by the householder but when it collapsed, it revealed the entrance to an ice store.
The view from the Crescent looks out over the (outskirts of the) city and must have been magnificent, as today’s local residents that live and walk round there know – it is possibly the most photographed view of the Malvern Hills and the city and Arboretum.
The ice store (link to London Canal Museum article on storing ice) was a common Victorian structure that the well-healed would have built so that ice could be stored for keeping food, chilling drinks or the new fad …Ice Cream.
In this case it is likely to have been for keeping food as the house was linked to the Lea and Perrins (Worcester sauce producers).
As you look up towards the house in question, you will notice that it is almost like a cube (a “Borg cube” perhaps – Star Trek reference), but so do the two houses either side of it as you can see inthe background of this image, below.
The accident gave a great opportunity to show the garden slope against the wall against what was a tradesman’s track and a nice walk for the clergy.
It may have been just and ice store, but look at the brickwork – a high quality job as the fact it still exists bares testiment.
Seeingthe image above of the ice store from around 1790, you can see that there were several doors down to the store to ensure it stayed cool and was not ‘corrupted’ by rain water and mud.
As you can see, the thick topsoil is over a modern fill mixed with brick – probably from the end of the ice store.
Closest to you is the brick from the garden wall.
This tells us that the ice store went out of use but was not removed, simply used as a store until the garden wall was built up to form a revetment wall. The original garden would most likely have sloped down towards where the canal is, with a wall to protect the owners from seeing the commoners using the then track – now Lansdowne Crescent.
Imagine if you can, the horse-drawn carts rattling up the hill (now Rainbow Hill) with two men on it and a massive block of ice laying on straw covered with tarpaulin, then turning to go along the track below the Bishop’s house and along to the ice store only to unload it and take it in blocks down to the dark, wet, cold store.
So there the ice store lay hidden and re-used, then disused under the garden until this accident, where thankfully no one was hurt.
The story lends itself to another aspect of our project “Cut-to-Canal” as Lea and Perrins’ no doubt built the house(s) close to the factory that made their sauce. The recipe secrets of which have their own story of intrigue but that’s another blog post in the waiting.
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