We recently went to a farm shop in Spain and they had this amazing machine outside. It's an absolutely beautiful piece of machinery. Obviously it's very well made to last a while. It's clearly an antique, but still seems to move perfectly.

At first I thought it was some sort of torture thing, ha. But as I remember it actually had a label on it saying something like Machine Agricultural. So what on earth is it for, it is a real mystery machine.

It doesn't seem to be that complicated. It had a large flat piece sticking out, that I just presumed was a seat, because there is a handle facing in the same direction.

The upright piece has a sort of crank at the top, that raises and lowers the piece with the handle on it. And the part with the handle actually swings very easily and can swing right up.

But it is the underside of this swinging part that is terrifying. Across the bottom of the swinging part and across the part that is fixed to the base, there are a crazy set of teeth sticking out like some sort of scary ancient shark.

Clearly, something is supposed to go between these two surfaces. Well I say that, but honestly it's not that clear. If something does go between these two sets of teeth it is going to get completed shredded up. And I can't really imagine what you would want to put in there and what would you be producing enough of to warrant making a whole machine for?

Does anyone know what this mystery machine is for?

We can only think it must be for fruit or something similar. But then if you wanted to get juice out of apples for example, I think they already had machines where they just crushed the apples. And I think things like grapes where just crushed as well. So why would you need this machine for fruit? Ancient mash potatoes for an army?

Confusing! Anyway it was really cool seeing it, just have always wanted to know what it was used for. Someone probably sat on that seat area for many, many hours, I wonder what they were doing?

Heather