Attard Windmill
📍 Location
Coordinates 35.892865, 14.442661
At-a-glance summary
Built in 1862 the windmill on Triq il-Mitħna (Mill Street), Attard belong to the island-wide tradition of tower (round) windmills that served local agriculture. They appear in local street-scenes and historic/photographic records as 18th–19th century rural mills which ceased operation after steam/motor milling arrived; today the street keeps the name and a few masonry survivals / mill-related buildings remain in the streetscape.
What the sources say — history & chronology
Triq il-Mitħna literally means “Mill Street” and the name records the street’s historic association with at least one local mill. Modern photographic surveys and local history summaries place surviving fabric and mill-site remains along that street, and oral/local histories indicate a mill was present by the 18th–19th century (traditional dating of many village mills). The most useful short local history of Attard (a thesis/monograph covering Attard since 1800) includes references to the town’s older streets and built features, including Mill Street.
Local compiled histories of Maltese windmills (popular/hobbyist sites and local heritage blogs) repeat the pattern: mills built to grind local wheat/barley, active through the 1800s, ceased commercial use after the introduction of steam-driven mills, and often demolished or adapted c. late-19th/early-20th century. Attard’s windmill(s) follow this island-wide trajectory.
Architecture & how it worked
Type: a classic Maltese tower (round) windmill — cylindrical stone tower set into a low rectangular base of rooms (store rooms, bakery or the miller’s accommodation). This “tower + base” format is visible in historic photographs of Triq il-Mitħna and matches descriptions of mills elsewhere in Malta.
Materials & construction: local globigerina limestone laid in lime mortar, with a timber windshaft and wooden sail-arms/driving gear historically. Interiors contained a brake wheel, vertical shaft and the runner/bedding millstone pair — the same mechanical arrangement used across Maltese island mills. No public source shows surviving original gearing in Attard’s Triq il-Mitħna examples.
Use, decline and later fate
Use: these were grain mills serving Attard and surrounding fields - farmers brought wheat/barley to be ground into flour locally.
Decline: with industrial/steam mills and better transport the small village windmills became uneconomic. Many such towers lost sails, were partially demolished or converted into houses/storage from the late 19th century onwards. Attard’s mill(s) appear to have followed that same history; historic photos on Commons and later street photographs show remnants and adapted buildings rather than a fully intact, working mill.
Current status (what you can see today)
Today Triq il-Mitħna keeps visible reminders: several photographs uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and architectural surveys show historic street scenes with mill-related masonry in situ (some buildings still retain mill-like profiles, niches or round bases). However, there is no widely promoted restored/museum windmill on that street (unlike Ta’ Kola on Gozo or Xarolla on Żurrieq), and surviving fabric tends to be integrated into houses or streetscape photos rather than a standalone restored mill. If you want to visit, walk Triq il-Mitħna and look for the round bases / low tower remains shown in Commons photos.
