I scanned this diagram of a downdraft bottle kiln from "Bottle Ovens", a pamphlet we bought at the Gladstone Pottery Museum in Stoke-on-Trent, England in 2004. It matches what we saw at Rookwood: the damper controls and firebox are on the outside and there is a domed ceiling with openings for the dampers. The floors at Rookwood were flat, however, and there was no "bag" (the low wall to direct hot gas from the firebox upward). Those features may have been removed to convert the kiln to a dining room.

June 15, 2012