The Ice House

Difficult to capture on film, this windowless room with double thick walls could store properly-packed ice for a year or more. The best dairy products came from farms that had access to ice. Roseland Cottage’s ice house provided that, and the Bowens’ were particularly fond of the cream from their cows, especially served over peaches from their orchard. In 1889, two hundred tons of ice were loaded in here, in anticipation of a very hot summer. No longer used to store ice, Roseland Cottage’s gardener uses the ice house to store mulch.