Montefiore Windmill, Historic windmill and museum in Yemin Moshe, Israel.
Montefiore Windmill is a round tower of locally quarried Jerusalem stone, about 15 metres high, with walls 0.9 metres thick at the base. It is topped by a Kentish-style wooden cap and four patent sails turned into the wind by a fantail. Inside, two pairs of millstones, flour dressers and wheat cleaners occupy the floors.
A British banker named Moses Montefiore built this structure in 1857 to establish new settlements outside the old city walls. The project was part of larger efforts to modernize the city and create economic opportunities.
The mill's Hebrew name ties it to Mishkenot Sha'ananim, the first Jewish neighbourhood built outside the Old City walls, founded alongside it by Montefiore. In English travellers' accounts it was called the Jaffa Gate Windmill. Since 2018 the site has been run by Jerusalem Wineries, a cooperative agricultural association, and the flour ground there in the 1860s came from grain bought from local Arab farmers.
The stone plaza around the mill is a lookout over Mishkenot Sha'ananim, Yemin Moshe, the Hinnom Valley and the Old City. Montefiore's carriage, rebuilt after a 1986 fire using its original iron fittings, is displayed behind glass in a small stone building beside the tower. The mill has been run since 2018 by the Jerusalem Wineries agricultural cooperative.
In 1948 Haganah fighters built a concrete observation post on the tower. British sappers ordered to destroy it were from Ramsgate, Montefiore's home town; seeing his name on a plaque, they blew up only the post, sparing the mill. The Americans in the colony filmed the event.
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