Tracking gristmills in Portugal: retrospection and reflexivity on place, technology, and change

Abstract

This article discusses changes in Portuguese gristmills driven by wind and water in the context of a personal retrospection on a field project carried out four decades earlier. Into the mid-twentieth century, windmills and two kinds of watermills were still important rural facilities to grind wheat, rye, and maize into flour. By the 1970s, technological change in Portugal had much reduced the number of those still operating; by 2011 most of those mills had ceased. The major exception is the persistence of watermills in the northwestern part of the country where maize cultivation, fondness for maize bread, powerful streams, hamlet settlement, and a conservative frugality converges to keep some mills still working. Nevertheless, they too, can be expected to disappear in the years ahead. Function is one thing; form is another. The Portuguese landscape remains rich in these structures and broadly held sentiment favors their preservation. Reflecting on a past project stimulated thinking about the importance of place in formulating a geographical topic, research as a cultural experience, constraints of fieldwork in the life span of scholars, and the value of critical self-assessment.

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