Article Nº 2915 Other building Funchal Vol. III · pp. 151–152
Snow pits
Original title: Poços da Neve
Man-made pits in Madeira's mountains that stored winter hail and snow to supply ice for sorbets in summer, now abandoned.
These are large pits dug by man in the ground at certain points in the mountains, intended to receive the hail that falls during the winter in the high parts of the island.
The snow pits are abandoned today, but in summer they supplied the ice needed to make sorbets, before the apparatus for freezing water artificially was introduced to Madeira.
Near Pico do Areeiro (‘sand-pit peak’) and the Serra de São Roque there are several snow pits, some badly ruined, others well preserved.
Places mentioned