Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: flax kiln workshop

While dried fruit is still popular today, before refrigeration with was more so, as it was used to hoard food for the winter. I'm not clear on all the specifics of why this was done, of course, given that the winter weather could have provided naturaly refrigeration for fruit, but before the railroads the fruit you harvested in the Fall had to last you until the next harvest, and drying works better for preserving fruit than any refrigeration short of freezing, even today. This building was where they prepared and dried fruit in a kiln.

This was my attempt at getting a cameraphone shot of the flax kiln, but lighting was a real problem. This kiln was actually loaded via a door out of frame to the right, perpendicular to the line of sight.

From the medieval period well into the 19th Century, flax was a common textile fiber, but in order to do so it had to be harvested from the flax plant, and then dried in a kiln. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax This cameraphone shot shows equipment for separating flax fibers in preparation for the kiln.