THE MILLS

THE MILLS Thanks to the calcareous constitution of the mountains and land of Torremolinos, rain drops are kept and even very high up some hills, there are sources of the purest water.

This water- bearing treasure formed a big bed which the Arabs used to make the first mills that have been reported. They were so important that, after the Reconquest, in 1497, the king and queen of Spain gave Málaga the privilege to use our waters and the property of numerous mills. Nevertheless, in those difficult times, there was always danger of Moorish and Turkish pirates and the millers sometimes abandoned our mills and went to grind to the mills of Churriana, which were farther from the coast and therefore, safer.

To top the danger of the pirates, in July 1704, when Fernando V was king of Spain, a big fleet of English and Dutch ships in command of Admiral Rooke appeared off our coasts.

They sent messengers to ask the governors of Málaga to provide their ships with food and water from the sources of Torremolinos and also to exchange several French and Spanish prisoners they had for English, Dutch or Portuguese that were in the jails of Málaga.

The authorities refused and some people from Mijas, Benalmádena and Alhaurinejo hurt and killed some sailors that had set foot on the beach. Admiral Rooke sent 2000 sailors ashore, who plundered and burnet all the houses and mills of Torremolinos.
Years after, it was all rebuilt again and thus, in the 1849 dictionary “Diccionario Geográfico- Estadístico- Histórico de España y sus Posesiones de Ultamar”, it is said that there were 14 wheat mills in Torremolinos and a fulling mill of brown paper, being also mule drivers among its residents (200 neighbours and 785 people made up that town).

We find another reference to the mills in 1923, when the waters are expropriated by he town hall of Málaga and the milling industry started its decline and disappearance.

By that time we know that the mills of Inca ( the oldest), Batan and Cea where in the area of Los Manantiales, behind what today is the Congress and Exhibition Centre.

Following the bed, we would come across the mills of el Moro and el Molinillo, situated in what we nowadays call the avenue Sorolla and surroundings.

The Manojas mill still preserves par of its façade near the Costa del Sol square where the bars El Molino, Flores and Jerez are.

On San Miguel street, at what used to be number 68, was the Castillo mill.

The Malleo mill was on the Church square (Plaza de la Iglesia, before Plaza de la Cruz), where today is the restaurant El Marqués.

Near the Torre de Pimentel there were the mills Alto del Rosario, Rosario, La Torre, and La Bóveda; some of them have been transformed into transformed into restaurants.

In the district of Bajondillo, going down the hill, we fid the mills of La Glorieta, Nuevo, La Esperanza, del Pato, del Caracol, de la Cruz, del Peligro (of danger), called like that because of its proximity to the beach and the constant risk of high tides which would sometimes flood it.

Some milled wheat (most of them); others, salt, minerals such as iron or oil. However, not one of them is working as a mill nowadays; half of them have disappeared and from the remaining ones, we can only contemplate the façades since the interiors have been completely demolished, the machinery taken apart and sold or abandoned.

It is to them and to the tower that we owe our name.