A spring house, or springhouse, is a small building, usually of a single room, constructed over a
spring. While the original purpose of a springhouse was to keep the spring water clean by excluding fallen leaves, animals, etc., the enclosing structure was also used for
refrigeration before the advent of ice delivery and, later, electric refrigeration. The water of the spring maintains a constant cool temperature inside the spring house throughout the year. Food that would otherwise spoil, such as meat, fruit, or
dairy products, could be kept there, safe from animal depredations as well. Springhouses thus often also served as
pumphouses,
milkhouses, and
root cellars.
The
Tomahawk Spring
Tomahawk Spring is a historic spring house located near Martinsburg, at Tomahawk, Berkeley County, West Virginia. It was built about 1860 on the stone foundation of a previous building. It is a one-story, wood-frame structure atop a three-feet-ta ...
spring house at
Tomahawk, West Virginia, was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...
in 1994.
Gallery
Image:springhouse.jpg, A small spring house near Collegeville, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...
.
Image:15 21 197_indian_springs.jpg, Stone spring house at Indian Springs State Park.
File:The Brewery Spring springhouse in Silver Plume, Colorado. The little structure, which supplied a good part of town with spring water, took its name from a brewery across the street LCCN2015633052.tiff, The Brewery Spring springhouse in Idaho Springs, Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
.
See also
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Ice house (building)
*
Smokehouse
*
Windcatcher
References
External links
*
House types
Cooling technology
Food preservation
Semi-subterranean structures
Springs (hydrology)
Vernacular architecture
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