Dunster, Somerset

Inside view

Anyone who looks at the different types of building that I write about on the English Buildings blog would be forgiven for thinking that I have a bit of a thing about dovecotes. I’ve done about a dozen posts about dovecotes over the years and yes, I do like them, both for the light they shed on past lives and diets and for their variety of structural forms – examples include structures built of stone, brick and wood; plans range from squares to octagons and, mostly common of all, circles.

Why circular dovecotes? The one at Dunster, which may date back to the 13th or 14th century but which many think is more likely to be 16th century, is well enough preserved to show how such a building worked. From the outside, the emphasis is on solid walls and small openings (through the little lantern or louvre at the top), to let in the doves or pigeons, while keeping out larger predators. The largest predator of all, man, can enter through the door, which would most of the time have been kept securely closed. Through it, the workers of the local lord (or, if the dovecote is from one of the earlier possible dates, monks of the Benedictine priory)* could enter and gain access to the nest boxes, where the eggs or young birds could be gathered to provide a welcome supplement to the medieval diet.

The key feature inside, apart from the 500 or so nest boxes set in the walls, is the central wooden device called the potence (photograph below). This consists of a substantial central post that can rotate and to which are attached horizontal beams and platforms. These in turn support a ladder. When the potence is turned, the ladder gives access to different next boxes, making the whole array of boxes accessible. Many ancient dovecotes have lost this mechanism, but at Dunster it’s preserved, giving us more of an idea than usual about how the dovecote was used, and an insight into the ingenuity of medieval and later carpenters.

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* Only nobles or members of the clergy (monastic or secular) were allowed to build and maintain dovecotes in the Middle Ages.

Dunster dovecote, interior showing nest boxes and potence

Compton Verney, Warwickshire

The ice man returneth

In 1626 the great writer and polymath Francis Bacon discovered that he could preserve a fowl by packing it with ice and snow. Tragically, the philosopher caught flu and died after his experiment with the fowl, but soon after this sad episode the use of ice caught on in the kitchens of the rich. Ice was used not just for food preservation, but also to make chilled desserts and to cool wine. If you had a country house with a lake (or special ice ponds), you had a ready source of ice in the winter. To keep the ice for use in the warmer months, you needed dedicated storage: enter the ice house.

Ice houses were small structures built to keep in the cold. A typical design consisted of a brick-lined chamber sunk partly into a hillside (or into an earth mound) and roofed with thick thatch. Some architects specified a double wall, for extra insulation; there was generally a drain to carry away surplus water; and there might also be a brick-vaulted entrance corridor with a door at either end, to cut off the ice chamber from the warm outdoors. Ice was packed carefully into the ice chamber, a job supervised by the head gardener, who would ensure that there were only the tiniest of gaps between the blocks of ice, to minimize air pockets and discourage thawing.

The ice house at Compton Verney, built in 1771–2, recently restored, and resplendent under its round thatched roof, is a beautiful example. It has a well constructed brick-lined interior and even though visitor access is to the entrance corridor not the ice chamber itself, it’s pleasantly cool in there. And one can see that, if Osbert Sitwell, comparing his family’s ice house at Renishaw to one of the vast stone-vaulted tombs at Mycenae, was laying it on a bit thick, he had a point – they really are very imposing interiors.

It was a bonus, when visiting Compton Verney to see their current exhibition of pictures by Ben Nicolson and Alfred Wallis, to find this ice house restored, a reminder of the time when Compton Verney was not an art gallery but a flourishing country house and an indication of the ingenuity of those who supplied its inhabitants with food and wine.


Above Entrance corridor, Compton Verney ice house

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There is more about the restoration of the Compton Verney ice house here, and more about Compton Verney itself here.