A rice dryer is an area, usually a threshing floor, used to spread the harvested grain and once it has been beaten, it is dried in the sun and then the husk is removed. In order to carry out this operation, it was necessary for it to remain there for several days and to periodically remove it with strips, which gave rise to a markedly geometric pattern like the furrows of a tilled field.
The facilities were very simple, little more than a large esplanade and a cabin of certain dimensions to store the grain in case of need. And logically, its most suitable location for l’Horta of Valencia was the closest to the rice fields, around the Albufera, and therefore, we find them in the south of Pinedo and Castellar-Oliveral, in the middle of the rice area of the Séquia de l’Or (Or irrigation canal) domain and along the El Saler shoal to El Palmar in the case of the municipality of Valencia.
Currently, they are no longer in use because the drying process has become industrial, but there are still some drying sheds and some rice threshing machines on these northern shores of Albufera Lagoon.