Ice House, opposite Ballycraigy Drive, Belfast Road, Antrim, Co Antrim

Ice House, opposite Ballycraigy Drive, Belfast Road, Antrim

This is a well-proportioned domestic ice house of distinctive plan form and spatial arrangement, displaying impressive structural form inside despite the loss of some minor elements. It stands in a generally pleasant setting with easy public access, and its value is enhanced by its location within a scheduled monument.

The ice house comprises a vaulted passage leading to a vaulted oblong end chamber, sited within what appears to be a circular earthen fort-like platform. The entrance faces north. Access to the entrance is by an open passage at ground level, lined by raking revetments of basalt rubble and fieldstones. The entrance itself is a semi-circular brick tunnel vault, also at ground level, with basalt rubble walls up to the springing of the vault. Brick dressings frame the open entrance archway, though much decayed; the vaulted passage has a basalt rubble floor. At the end of the vaulted passage is a semi-circular opening above a basalt rubble plinth wall, giving access to a brick-lined domical vaulted chamber. The exterior of the chamber is of mounded form, overgrown with grass and brambles, raised above the flattish top of the larger fort-like mound, which has mature trees, thick bushes, and brambles growing on it.

The structure is sited in a field, which appears to be common land, set back from the main road but clearly visible from it. Immediately to the east is an electricity substation surrounded by a steel fence with an outer concrete post and wire fence. The south side of the mound slopes down steeply to be bounded by a railway line, currently with the track lifted for repair or replacement. The field is bounded to the north and east by basalt rubble walls, broken by concrete steps on the east side adjacent to the electricity substation. The steps lead from a path running along the east side from the public road to a pedestrian tunnel under the railway line; the path is marked by a pair of square masonry piers at the roadside.

Built as a domestic ice house, presumably in connection with Ballycraigy House (now demolished), the residence of the Chaine family in the 19th century. Ballycraigy House was described in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs in the 1830s as "an old-fashioned, plain and rather large building" of uncertain date. The precise date of construction of the ice house is not known, but it appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832. The structure lies within the area of scheduled monument ANT50:75, described as a flat-topped mound or circular earthen platform of uncertain function.