Molino del Batán, Huerta del Marquesado

Hammers for wool

From the 16th century Huerta worked wool and hemp, and the River Laguna powered mills, an ironworks with a hammer mill and this fulling mill. Its two wooden hammers beat cloth coated in fuller’s earth to bind the weave. The Ensenada Cadastre, in the mid-18th century, describes it as a fulling mill «para paños y cordellates de la tierra» (for locally made cloth and cordellate fabrics), six hundred paces from the village, with a resident owner who managed it himself. It also had a millstone: it both fulled cloth and ground flour.

It worked as a fulling mill until the early 1950s, and as a flour mill, increasingly rarely, until the early 1970s. It then collapsed. The town council restored it, and it is now one of Spain’s few working fulling mills. Beside it, two sculptures from the Paisaje Ilustrado recreate blanket drying and the millers.

Plan your visit

Before you travel

It is around 700 m downstream from Huerta del Marquesado, along a track suitable for cars; coaches park in the village. Visits are arranged through the town council.

Combine with

The Paisaje Ilustrado and the PR-CU 39, a PR (short-distance trail) along the Laguna river plain.