This Thursday, the island institution and Palma City Council signed an agreement to restore and conserve the mills and prevent their degradation and possible disappearance.
This Thursday, the Consell de Mallorca and Palma City Council signed a collaboration agreement to restore the city’s two most emblematic windmills: the flour windmill d’en Garleta, located in Es Jonquet, and the Son Perera water extraction windmill, which is located in the Coll de en Rebassa.
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The windmills of Garleta and Son Perera in Palma
The vice-president of the Consell de Mallorca and councillor of Culture and Heritage, Antònia Roca, explained that ‘this agreement aims to restore and conserve the windmills owned by Palma City Council to contribute to their preservation and prevent their degradation and possible disappearance’.
As Roca explained, ‘over the last few decades the number of windmills in operation has been greatly reduced, so the institutions have to work to promote the conservation of these heritage elements’. He recalled that ‘one of the competencies of the island institution is the protection of the monumental, cultural, historical, artistic, architectural, archaeological and landscape heritage in its territorial area’.
According to Óscar Fidalgo, Palma City Council’s town planning councillor, ‘both institutions aim to conserve all these elements to prevent further degradation and their possible disappearance’. The Consell de Mallorca will be in charge of restoring the mills at Garleta and Son Parera, and will provide the Palma Town Hall with technical advice for the restoration of other mills it owns.
Two of the city’s most emblematic mills
The Garleta windmill is one of the five flour windmills that are still preserved in Palma’s Jonquet neighbourhood. This historic neighbourhood was declared an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC) with the category of historic complex. It was probably built in the 17th century, but it seems that it was no longer in operation at the beginning of the 20th century.
Palma City Council expropriated it in 1993 to refurbish it and turn it into a museum. For several decades it has housed the Molins Museum, displaying a permanent exhibition on the history, evolution and typologies of the mills of the Balearic Islands. It has also been the headquarters of the Association of Friends of the Mills of Mallorca.
The Son Parera windmill is a water extraction windmill that was part of the estate of the same name. Like all the water extraction windmills in the Pla de Sant Jordi, it is listed as an element of historical and scenic interest in Palma.
Both the Garleta windmill and the Son Parera windmill are two of the most emblematic windmills in the municipality of Palma, and their state of conservation is currently quite poor. The two institutions have announced that a monitoring commission will be set up, made up of representatives from both parties, to ensure the correct development of the agreement.