Underground Mill in San Gwann

In the 1950s, Malta was still rebuilding itself after the devastation of World War II, and the memory of starvation and hardship during the Siege of Malta between 1940 and 1942 was still raw. As the Cold War escalated and a new threat of nuclear war loomed, the British forces who still governed Malta at the time decided to arm the Maltese Islands with a civil defence system to ensure a ready and uninterrupted supply of bread would be available, in case other food supplies dried up in the event of an attack.
The British colonial office ordered the construction, or rather the excavation, of a network of eight underground flour mills between 1954 and 1955, with seven dotted around Malta and one on the island of Gozo. The mills were located in what were then rural areas, but still within easy reach of major towns. The threat, thankfully, never materialised, and most of these mills now lie derelict and barred.
This Mill is  completely dug into the rocks – a tunnel about 30 metres long, 2.5 metres high and 3 metres wide, leading to the first underground chamber split onto three levels. This contains the machinery that was meant to handle the final process of the milling – the production of 3 separate products: flour, bran and offal. The chamber is approximately 11 metres below ground level.

As an emergency facility, each mill was to be self-sufficient and for this purpose, an 80hp diesel engine and alternator was located in the lower chamber. Each mill had an underground silo capacity of some 1000 tons of wheat.

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