Windmills are prominent elements in the Oeste region. They give the landscape a living expression of the culture and ethnography of its people and are recognized today as a regional identity mark. There are 43 mills remaining in the territory of Sobral de Monte Agraço alone, but only one is used for cultural, educational and tourist visits.
Initially made of wood, the Oeste windmills began to be built in masonry around the XVI century, becoming known as the “Portuguese Mill” or “Mediterranean” type. An example of this type of architecture is the Sobral de Monte Agraço windmill, overlooking the village, with a privileged view of the Serra do Socorro, the Forte de Alqueidão and the protected area of the Serra de Montejunto.
The medium-sized Sobral mill is painted in blue and white, and on the outside you can see its three windows, the roof, the weathercock, the mast, the poles, the half-cane shells, and four triangular sails.
The mill's sails once had their own symbology and could be used by the miller to communicate with the locals. For example, one open sail and three rolled ones ‘said’ that the miller was not at the mill; a sail on its side, not facing the wind, informed that the mill was not working and the miller was chopping the millstones; if the sails were over the door and the back pole was in the middle of it, it would indicate mourning – probably the death of some relative of the miller.
The interior of the Moinho de Sobral is divided into a basement, for storing materials and tools, and on two floors. A couple of millstones worked on each floor, which had the function of crushing the grain, converting it into flour. On the first floor, corn flour was produced, and, on the upper floor, wheat was milled.
The miller was responsible for controlling the quality of the flour, a fundamental ingredient for the manufacture of bread - the basis of the population’s food. His work was often lonely and required great dedication.
The miller had to be aware of the direction of the winds to activate and direct the grinding mechanism as effectively as possible; when there was no wind, he devoted himself to other tasks, such as cleaning up the impurities that the grain brought from threshing floors or threshing machines, which influenced the quality of the flour, colour and flavour of the bread. This cleaning was done using a sieve or sorting machine. From time to time, it was necessary to chop the millstones so that the contact surface maintained the necessary roughness for grinding the grain, reducing it to flour. For this, the miller used a two-peaked pick.
Usually, the miller was accompanied by a cat, to ward off the rats, and by a dog that guarded the property.
It was also the miller’s job to deliver the flour. From village to village, he transported the sacks of flour on a donkey or a cart. He distributed the flour and exchanged information and news that it took to and from the places they passed, thus strengthening neighbourhood relations between the populations.
During the Third French Invasion, many windmills were dismantled to prevent the French army from producing food; others were converted into outposts of observation, benefiting from their placement on the ground; still others were used as magazines, when incorporated by the forts of the defensive lines north of Lisbon – the Lines of Torres Vedras.
