LONGFIELD COTTAGE ICE HOUSE, HARTSHILL, STOKE ON TRENT
Longfield Cottage stood opposite the Noah's Ark public house in Hartshill, Stoke on Trent. The ice house was situated at the edge of a field to the south-east of where Longfield Cottage stood, but is now in the garden of a private residence in Thornburrow Drive.
Longfield Cottage was built c1800's and was the birthplace of Dinah Mullock ion 1826, better known as Mrs Craik, the author of 'John Haifax, Gentleman'. Her family lived there until 1831, when the estate was sold and purchased by Herbert Minton of Minton Pottery fame. It remained in the Minton family for some time and the estate was expanded by the purchase of Longfield House which stood nearby.
In 1918 the Longfields estate was put up for sale and was purchased by the North Staffordshire Cripples Aid Society and was known as Longfields Hospital and it eventually became the core of the Hartshill Orthopedic Hospital until it was demolsihed c1960's. The North Staffordshire Medical Research Institute now stands where Longfield Cottage once stood.
I paid a visited the ice house in 2015 and was kindly allowed to inspect and enter the ice house and take photographs. The owner is very intertested in its history and is quite proud to have an ice house in her garden, infact it takes up most of the garden.
The exact date of its construction is not known but ity is likely to have been sometime when the Minton's purchased the estate which would make it c1830's
The structure is made of bricks with a covering of earth, but only part of it is covered now. It is of conical shape with a short corridor - which may have been longer, which opens directly onto the ice chamber. The ice 'pit' has been filled in and the floor is now covered with red facing bricks.
It is a small ice house compared to say Biddulph Grange or Crakemarsh ice houses, but is still of interest.
