El Molí i el Vapor de l'Hort del Molí

Madoz's dictionary recorded that in 1849 the mill at the Hort del Molí was still grinding grain in Canet d'en Berenguer. A year later, a new water-sharing scheme doomed it. Beside it stands a "vapor", one of the area's first wells to pump water with steam machinery: two pieces of the same hydraulic landscape that once governed farming life.

A bit of history

The flour mill follows the traditional building style of the Valencian huerta, driven by the water that was afterwards shared out through the network of irrigation channels. The 1850 water-sharing scheme left Canet with a turn only once a fortnight, and the mill eventually stopped. The steam pump marks the next step: when gravity-fed water no longer sufficed, a machine drew it up from below ground.

One curiosity

You can spot these steam pumps from afar by their slender brick chimneys. They were raised by hand, without external scaffolding: the workers climbed up inside the shaft itself as the chimney grew taller. This is heritage seen from the outside; to make sense of it, pair it with the Motor de Sant Pere, another of the town's water stations.