The Ice House is partially buried within the rampart (earth bank) beside the northern section of York's City Wall. Most visitors see it from the Wall Walk.

Its sculptural form (a brick-domed roof with arched entrance porch) is both aesthetically pleasing and unmistakable, regardless of the viewing angle or vantage point.

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This photograph of the Ice House was taken from the walkway that runs along the top of the adjacent section of the City Walls (hence the image's aerial perspective).

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This view, taken from St Maurice's Road, clearly shows the location of the ice house relative to the city wall and adjacent earth bank.

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This view (from the north) shows the relative height of - and provides a glimpse into - the Ice House's entrance porch.

The structure is a rare survivor that tells the story of a once common need: to provide a year-round supply of ice in the days before the invention of cost effective mechanical refrigeration. (Ice was typically used to preserve food, to make ice cream and for medical purposes, although the pub is unlikely to have been involved with the latter.)

While ice could have been collected from nearby frozen rivers or ponds during cold winters, such a supply would have been both seasonal and unreliable. Also, this kind of 'local' ice tended to be too dirty for food use. Ice was therefore imported from countries with colder climates and cleaner waters, most notably Norway and the United States of America. (The international 'ice trade' or 'frozen water trade' was big business throughout the nineteenth century.)