Welcome to Bromley Palace Park and it’s historic features! This location is the fifth stop in the heritage and biodiversity trail around the historic parks in Bromley Town Centre.
The Ice-well, Summerhouse, & Canoe Store
This building is several things: it has been an Ice Well, and is now a boat house and an Arts and Crafts Summer House. The original ice well was built in the mid 1700s, when the well-to-do would store ice, stored in layers of straw – as refrigeration was not available. Iced desserts were very popular from Georgian times and many fashionable balls would serve only iced refreshments. High Elms and the Bishops Palace had one Ice House each, while Sundridge Park had two.
The original ice well was built in the mid 1700s, when the well-to-do would store ice, stored in layers of straw
Ice deserts became popular with the very wealthy from 1670s. They reached quite an art form in the mid 1800s, being moulded and decorated; skilled cooks would pound and process the ice into elaborate moulds, imitating the ancient Roman fashions of making the food appear to be something different to what it was. Books were published with many different flavours, – these included cucumber, bread and pistachio, tea, and coffee, in addition to flavours common today like orange and lemon.
This ice well was then remodelled in the 1860s, by R Norman Shaw, who also designed some estate cottages and a bailiff’s cottage for the Lord of the Manor, Mr Coles Childs. He added a nice porch with a seat in, and it had a fine view over the Ha-Ha along the valley where the Blackbrook runs into the Ravensbourne by St Marks church.
The building was inspected in 1975 by Geoffrey G Cooke, who described it and provided measured drawings for English Heritage, where it is on their ‘At Risk’ register. In 2020 the roof collapsed.
The whole of the Bromley Town Park Heritage and Biodiversity trail can be found here.
The Icehouse also has its own entry here in Bromley Civic Society’s page on this park, here.
To continue the Heritage Trail, continue along the Carriage Drive to the end, where there is a lawn.
Browse our old photos, in 
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