One solution was the icehouse, a structure purpose-built to store blocks of ice harvested during winter from nearby lakes or ponds, packed in straw or sawdust, and sealed against the warmer months. The demesne at Ross in County Galway once held such a building, a quiet reminder of how country estates managed the practicalities of preservation long before electricity reached rural Ireland.

Icehouses of this kind were typically constructed partly or wholly below ground, taking advantage of the earth's natural insulation. A domed or vaulted interior, often brick-lined, would maintain temperatures low enough to keep ice from late autumn well into summer, sometimes longer if the structure was well designed and the winter harvest plentiful. They were working buildings, not decorative ones, and because their function became obsolete so quickly, many were simply abandoned, left to be reclaimed by undergrowth or repurposed in ways that obscured their original form. The one at Ross Demesne represents a category of estate infrastructure that shaped daily life for the household while remaining largely invisible to history.