How was ice made in the Medieval Era?

How was ice made in the Medieval Era?

It wasn’t. Until modern refrigeration ice was not produced, It could be, though, saved throughout the Summer, in specially built icehouses.

The icehouse was usually built in the coolest and most shadowed part of the land, often on the closest mountains. Its main part was semi-subterranean, and would be filled with clean ice and compacted snow in winter, which were then covered with insulating materials to further keep them cool. The icehouse door always faced north, and the opening would have a series of doors to better seal in the cold. Finally, usually the structure was covered with earth and grass. Inside the icehouse there would be shelves and racks to keep foods that had to be stored in the cold.

Ice would then be transported in large blocks stacked on carts and well-insulated with sheets of fabric to keep it clean and layers of insulating materials. A load of ice could decrease to an half of its original amount during transportation, but there would usually be enough left that could serve the purpose of whoever it was destined to. In other cases, the rich would have an icehouse built near their palaces and ice taken there from the nearby mountains, so that they always had ice available for making cool treats for Summer.