Here’s a summary of the construction and history of Zejtun Windmill now demolished in Zejtun, Malta:
Historical profile of Zejtun WIndmill in Zejtun, Malta, the windmill built in 1670 — including its construction, working life, and eventual disappearance.
A profile of the Zejtun windmill (built c. 1670 by the Cottoner/Cotoner Foundation) — what is known with reasonable confidence, what is inferred from the Maltese windmill tradition
Zejtun windmill (Cottoner Foundation)
Type: tower (round) windmill — the standard Maltese cylindrical tower set on a square/rectangular base.
Built: c. 1670, as part of the Cottoner (Cotoner) Foundation windmill programme of the late 17th century.
Function: grinding cereals (wheat, barley, animal fodder) for the local community and providing small rental income for the foundation/landowner.
Fate: demolished (no visible remains today). Published catalogues list it as demolished but do not give a demolition date.
Construction & architectural characteristics (inferred + contextual)
No specific architectural plan for this Zejtun mill has been published online. However, Cottoner-era mills followed a clear typology across Malta, so the Zejtun mill almost certainly had these features:
Material: local globigerina limestone masonry.
Form: cylindrical tower rising from a square base (storage & miller’s room).
Roof/head: rotating timber cap to face sails into the wind, with timber stocks and canvas/timber sails.
Machinery: horizontal windshaft, gearing and one or more pairs of millstones (runner + bedstone).
These are the standard features documented for Cottoner-period tower mills elsewhere on Malta.
Historical role & working life
The Cottoner Foundation (Grand Master Nicolás Cotoner, 1663–1680) sponsored a wave of windmill construction to strengthen local provisioning and raise income; the Zejtun mill is recorded as part of that programme (hence the c.1670 date). As with other foundation mills, it served local agrarian needs and may have been leased to tenant millers.
How long it worked: published lists do not record a precise “last working” date for the Zejtun tower; many comparable Cottoner-mills remained operative into the 19th/early-20th centuries until steam/diesel mills displaced them. The Zejtun mill’s demolition date is not stated in the online surveys.
Documentary & physical evidence (what exists)
Published survey entries: The mill is listed in aggregated catalogues and specialist compilations that record its existence, origin (Cottoner), and demolition.
Photographs / plans: I did not find any publicly-available plan, photograph or detailed description specific to this Zejtun mill in online sources.
Physical remains: none — the recorded status is “demolished”. No standing tower or identifiable footprint survives in modern streetscapes (per catalogue notes).
Why precise dates and details are missing
Many 17th- and 18th-century rural structures were recorded only in notarial leases or parish rolls; they were not photographed in large numbers until the late 19th century.
Demolition often occurred piecemeal (stone reused locally) and wasn’t always recorded in municipal minutes; hence an exact demolition year often only emerges from notarial/estate papers or old maps/photographs — sources that need archival search.