Monument record HAD 035 - Deanery Tower and ice-house

Deanery Tower. C15, built 1495 by Archdeacon Pykeham, originally gatehouse to the Archdeacon's house (demolished early C19). 43 feet high, 31 feet wide, brick built.
Surviving remnant of intended palace of Archdeacon Pykenham (1495).

The deanery house and ice-house built by Dean Pykeham between 1472-1497. Only about one brick course of this ice-house still shows above ground with 10ft extending below. Originally a brick cellar with a round arched roof, built aroun 1495. Within the cellar, at a later date, an octagonal structure was erected, leaving part of the cellar unaltered. It is thought to have been an uncompleted ccorner turret from a quadrangle projected by Dean Pykenham who only lived long enough to erect the gatehouse, now nown as 'The Deanery Tower'. Later an even smaller octagonal structure was erected within the cellar-cum-icehouse.
Shown in a Gainsborough painting, "View of St Mary's Church, Hadleigh", dated 1748, and is known to have served the deanery, 30 yards away. Ice source is probably the River Brett. The Old Deanery house was demolished in 1823 and the ice house was subsequently used as a summer house base until c.1950 when it collapsed, then used as a fishpond c.1962. Finally from 1773 is has been used as a children's sandpit. Not known if 1495 cellar was used as an ice-house but it is likely that it was only used for this purpose following the later alterations (S1).