springhouse

1. (Appalachia) A small building constructed over a spring, formerly used for refrigeration (and thus sometimes also serving as pumphouse, milkhouse, or root cellar).Examples: "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 standpoint—when it stood for more convenient handling and better prices for the milk and butter of the farm—has come to be an important factor in the home building of to-day. […] The useful springhouse of the farm dairy is adorned with flowering vines and converted into the most decorative feature of the homestead; and even country churches delight in this additional attraction to their church property, where the country members quench their thirst after their long "ride to meeting.""; "When it was all over Mr. Sam came out to the spring-house to say good-by to me before he and Mrs. Sam left."; "At first light, around the time that the body of the kagan – a body that had already begun to manifest decidedly uncorpselike signs of movement – was being carried by an ill-assorted trio into a springhouse near a little-used gate of the Palace through which corpses and those who tended to them traditionally passed, the watch posted atop Qizl caught sight of a scattering of black seeds against the flickering gray of the southern horizon."Appalachia