Ice House Belle

A little bit of history about the inspiration for the story Ice House Belle in Hag's Breath: A Collection of Witchcraft and Wickedness, published October 2016.

In the grounds of Bedwellty House and Park in Tredegar you will find an unusual ice house - a brick building built over the underground ice chamber - with a bell on the roof above. It intrigued me for ages and got me wondering - why on earth would anyone need a bell over an ice house?

Sadly, the only two references I could find to the bell online have since been deleted, but it seems that the bell was in fact once a school bell. When the very old village school closed down, the owners of Bedwellty Park, either the Morgans or Samuel Homfray, I am not sure, rescued it, installing it over the ice house for safe keeping. It serves no purpose, other than to make people like me scratch their heads in curiosity. I think saving it for posterity was a wonderful thing to do.