springhouses

Noun

springhouse (plural springhouses)

1. (Appalachia) A small building constructed over a spring, formerly used for refrigeration (and thus sometimes also serving as pumphouse, milkhouse, or root cellar).
   • The very suggestion of a springhouse calls up recollections of quaint, low eaved "homey" farmhouses; the simple life of old-time country homes, and the solidity and picturesque simplicity of ancestral estates. The charm of this home accessory, that was once considered a necessity from an economic...1908, Phebe Westcott Humphreys, “Springhouses old and new”, in American Homes and Gardens, volume 5, pages 401–403