The blades of the Molino de las Piedras are now ready to turn gracefully on Los Mateos hill decades after doing so for the last time, as soon as they get their lateen sails back. The Cartagena City Council has concluded the recovery works of this typical flour mill in the region after an investment of 110,000 euros and more than two years in phased works. It is the fifth of municipal ownership recovered in the last decade.
The mayor, Ana Belén Castejón, and the vice mayor, Noelia Arroyo, led the municipal representation at the inauguration, yesterday, which was attended by directors of the neighborhood’s social groups.
The first phase of the works was carried out with the participatory budgets for 2018. It involved an investment of 80,000 euros. The second was undertaken under the budget of the Archaeological Heritage area and cost 30,000. The Molino de las Piedras is the traditional lateen sail mill in Campo de Cartagena, of the flour type, and is classified as an asset of cultural interest (BIC) with the category of monument.
The City Council invests 110,000 euros in the reform of the participatory budgets and Archaeological Heritage
It is located in the northern part of the Los Mateos neighborhood, on a rocky promontory next to the La Unión highway. The City Council highlighted its great landscape value, since it visually connects with the Campo de Cartagena and the heads of La Fraila, Beaza and Ventura, while allowing the main castles in the environment to be seen.
Three indoor floors
There is evidence of its existence since the mid-nineteenth century. The tower, truncated-conical in shape, is 7.30 meters high, with a diameter of 4.50 at the base and 3.80 at the top. Its interior was originally divided into three floors, which have now been recovered by means of chambers with wooden floors. The first level, with windows to the outside, was the room for the miller, while on the upper floor, below the spire, the milling machinery was located, where the rotation of the blades was transmitted to the air axis.
The president of the Housewives of Los Mateos, Ginesa Mulero, was very excited to see it restored and remember the years in which she ran around as a child. For the residents of the neighborhood it has been a “very great illusion.” “70 years ago my mother sent me here to see if they would give me a handful of flour to eat, because in those days we were hungry,” the woman recalled.
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