HarrowsmithFall 2019 | 227sourced from local farmer’s milk
was produced in the creamery on
the base floor. The Galt Reporter
claimed that the Ayr Ice House
and Creamery stored 50,000
pounds of butter before export
to the British Market.
Over 20 years later, in 1906, the
ice house was renamed Nithside
Creamery by David McColl,
owner of McColl’s General
Store. Referred to as The Ayr
Creamery from 1912 to 1918,
the ice house was purchased by
William Alexander Ramsay and
Frederick Robinson in 1918. In
1937, G.H Lawrence purchased
the building and it became G.H
Lawrence’s Bakery, providing
baking products to the village of
Ayr for 32 years.
The two-and-a-half-storey
stone-and-brick masonry
structure with a wooden sloped
gable roof and three voussoir
windows is iconic. It’s the last
brick two-storey building of its
type left in Ontario. Typically,
ice houses were rectangular, not
square, yet the Ayr Ice House is
27 by 27.1 feet. The foundation
walls are over 5.5 metres (18 feet)
thick and made of rubble stone,
while the upper walls are brick
with an exterior coat of cement
parging and rubble stone.
Sawdust was used in the walls of
the ice house, and remnants of
whitewash used to reflect heat
can be seen in early photos of the
house. Twenty plaster markings
on the outside of the building
indicate where support tongs
were used to lift the ice into
the building.
Weather and age took its toll
on the ice hut, which was sold to
Purity Flour Mills in 1958. The
roof caved in and the lintels were
in dire need of repair. A $1,500
engineering study (financed by
the Architectural Conservancy
of Ontario) led to the 2016
proposal for the ice house’s
heritage designation under the
Ontario Heritage Act.1909 Culinary Academy
5183 Trussler Rd.Suitably, the old schoolhouse
on Trussler Road has been
transformed into a culinary
institute. Though the original
school officially closed in 1965,
it was still used for community
events. Reborn 110 years later,
the schoolhouse is now Canada’s
first chef training facility with
a focus on agriculture, where
primary pencils are now beingTRAVEL & CULTURE: WHY WE LOVE AYR