Molins de la Vila watermills in Montblanc

Molins de la Vila is a museum in Montblanc integrated within the Museu Comarcal de la Conca de Barberà (MCCB), open to the public since 1994. It is an architectural complex known as the Molins de la Vila, former flour mills on the eastern side of Montblanc, near the confluence of the Francolí and Anguera rivers. Two of the mills are preserved: the molí Gran or molí de la Volta and the molí Xiquet.

The molí Gran or molí de la Volta has a rectangular floor of 89 m² and consists of four mills with a hydraulic system, a semi-circular masonry arch, and thick walls. All the walls, the roof structure with a vault structure, and the upper base are built with crushed stone. There are four gun-shaped openings in the east wall. The water basin is masonry on one side and excavated in clay ground on the other; it is at a higher level, receiving water from the Francolí river and discharging into the Anguera. It has four pipes with respective pressure tanks where the water falls onto the runners or turbines. The molí Xiquet is on the bank of the Anguera river and has been destroyed by numerous floods. It preserves a floor of 61 m² with the remains of two diaphragm arches that supported the roof or an upper floor. Currently, the complex is part of the Museu Comarcal as a monographic section.

The site where the watermills of the village of Montblanc are located, between the Francolí and Anguera rivers, is also known as Vila-salva. The place is documented in 1155 when Ramon Berenguer IV granted a charter of population to Pere Berenguer de Vilafranca. King Alfons I, with a new charter of population, established that the village should move to the other side of the Francolí river and be named Montblanc. The mills were the property of the commune from the 13th century until the Guerra dels Segadors. The municipality was sold to the Comunitat de Preveres. In 1846, the Comunitat de Preveres rented the mills to Baltasar Pedrol and Anton Casanovas, with a contract mentioning that only two of the four functioned. At the end of the 18th century, the mills were ruined, and they functioned partially until the middle of the 19th century (1848) when a flood ruined them definitively.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons