Horizontal windmill

The Asterousia Mountains never let me go, I find them beautiful and we keep going on short and long tours through the mountains.

On one tour we discovered a horizontal windmill by chance near the town of Miamou, I've never seen anything like it before.

Nine halved iron petrol barrels serve as wind catchers for a wind turbine.

The low, round building has only two floors. The basement is built into the rock. The flat roof protruding over the rock forms a platform. A kind of iron "carousel" is attached to it on a standing shaft. However, this wind turbine does not have sails like the normal vertical Mediterranean windmills. Instead, nine halved iron barrels (petrol barrels) are attached to it as wind catchers.

In the basement, the mill is not circular on the inside because the rock protrudes into it and measures around 5.5 x 4 m. It houses a grinding gear. It is not driven directly from above, as the hopper and the hull would get in the way, but via a gear drive from below. The grinding gear can be engaged and disengaged via a pinion on the mill iron.

There has been a windmill in the town of Miamou for around 200 years, always of the horizontal mill design. The existing mill was built in 1920.

It was used until 1972. Then it was no longer profitable to operate because all the flour from the large mills could be bought more cheaply in stores.

The mill is still functional. Apparently there used to be around 5 other mills of this type in the Lassithi district near Agios Nikolaos.

Very unique this windmill 🤩😍❤️.Read more