One of the few surviving windmills on the Maltese islands is Ta’ Kola windmill located in the village of Xagħra. Its name derives from the last miller’s name, Ġużeppi Grech, locally known as Żeppu ta’ Kola (Joseph, son of Nikola). The windmill dates back to the time of the Knights of the Order back in 1725 but due to it being constructed of poor quality stone and mortar it had to be reconstructed in the 1780s. When the wind was favourable for the mill to be operated, the miller would let the locals know by blowing through a triton-shell, and they would then bring their cereals and grain to be ground into flour. The heavy millstones can still be seen at the top of the mill linked to the central milling mechanism, around which, are the rooms where the miller lived and worked. On the ground floor of this historical mill visitors can observe the workshop hosting a vast array of tools, some of which were manufactured by the mill’s owners. In addition on the first floor, the living quarters, the kitchen, dining room and bedrooms, were recreated using traditional furniture and Gozitan crafts such as traditional utensils and cooking ware rarely seen today providing a glimpse of island’s local traditional rural life in the past centuries. The windmill became a museum in 1992.
