The mills
Not only Lestache built two mills on the River Xuvia but also took as a model the mills he had seen as a child and teenager back in France and, specifically, the one his father owned in Vienne.
In France, during the 18th century, there were numerous advances in the use of hydro energy as a driving force for flour milling. In fact, studies and treatises inspired in the Enlightenment precepts were published in that period. Their aim was to ensure a more efficient and faster milling and obtain flour of a better quality.
These innovations, mainly applied to mill machinery, developed a cereal milling system called mouture économique (cheap milling) which broadly improved the performance compared to the previous traditional methods.
Precisely, that was the system applied by Juan Lestache in the Xuvia mills, bringing most of the machinery, such as the millstones and the sifters, directly from France.
Juan Lestache´s and Francisco Bucau’s mills were, at the end of the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th century, the most productive mills in Galicia, with a much better performance than the traditional river mills.
The Xuvia flour factories could mill up to 70.000 fanegas of wheat, which meant some astonishing 3,885,000 litres of cereal. This huge capacity made it possible to supply flour to a city of 30,000 inhabitants as Ferrol, as well as the surrounding villages, Betanzos and Pontedeume and mitigate the subsequent food crises derived from the war blockades with England in 1789 or the great drought of 1802.
However, not only did the Xuvia mills stand out for their high milling output but also for the quality of their flour; there were two different types: single-milled flour and double-milled flour. A second milling ensured a thinner flour.
Volume and quality were obtained thanks to the use of a highly sophisticated machinery that Juan Lestache brought directly from France; this indeed made the difference. The first elements wereflint millstones with nearly two metres wide coming from La Ferté-sous- Jouarre, in the Île-de-France, where one could find the best flint quarries and workshops that made millstones. These millstones were highly appreciated by their great hardnes, since they allowed for the possibility of having very thin flour with a continuous operation and little wear.
There were also five cleaning devices, which removed all chaff and impurity from the wheat grains such as rye and oats scraps, dust, hay and stones and made the cereal pass directly to the hoppers. Lastly, there were five sifters, also manufactured in France, through which the flour passed after the milling to separate it from the bran. This way, there was up to 80% grain recovery with 20% left for bran.
The Xuvia Industrial Mills are made up of three different constructions connected through a central courtyard. The three buildings are made of granite rubble masonry, covered by lime, which has been recovered in the recent restoration. The stonework was reserved for door and window frames and corners, being left uncovered.
The mills
These are two buildings located over the River Xuvia that use the driving force of the water. The one that is closer to the riverbank is the largest mill of the two and was owned by Lestache and the other one, the one with the lower roof, was owned by his partner Francisco Bucau. When the society was dissolved in 1786, after a long litigation, Lestache acquired the Bucau mill and unified both constructions. Each of the mills had two flint millstones for wheat milling.
The warehouse
Located in today’s reception. This building was ready to store a great amount of wheat for milling and of flour for supplying the surrounding area. The great capacity of these warehouses allowed Lestache to help alleviate several food crises that occurred in Ferrol and in the Terra de Trasancos at the end of the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th century. The warehouses had their own pier for bringing the grain from Ferrol’s harbour to later return the processed flour.
The house
This is the northernmost building, where Lestache and his family established their residence. From there, he was able to manage the production of his flour mills as well as his paper mill and his leather factory. One of the most interesting rooms in the house was his study, where he had a big cupboard, acting as file cabinet, with plenty of shelves where he stored an enormous number of documents and letters, organised in bundles, which nowadays make us appreciate the wide diversification of the entrepreneur’s supply markets (Castile, Prussia, Russia, England, America…).
The Xuvia Industrial Mills had a very similar functioning to the traditional river mills but they included some innovations which made them much more productive, such as the French-made thin flint millstones and the machinery for cleaning and sifting wheat.
Water abstraction
The base of the production to move the machinery was the water abstraction from the River Xuvia. With that purpose, they built a big millpond a few metres upriver from the mills. This weir also had a sluice, which functioned as an overflow channel for those moments when the river had an excessive volume of water.
The spout floor
The water was carried down a canal towards the lower part of the mills where the spout floor was ocated to move the pit wheels and the four millstones. The pit wheels in Xuvia were horizontal, similar to those of the traditional mills, although in France and in Juan Lestache´s, Vienne, native village, Vienne, vertical wheels were often used. Xuvia
The millstones
The pit wheels also spun the thin flint millstones brought from France, located further up in the grinding floor. The upper stone –called runner stone– is a moving stone and the lower stone –called bed stone– is a fixed stone. The millstones were surrounded by a wooden framework –called tun– and allowed for the collection of flour, which was transported down the same conduit so it could be more easily collected.
Other elements
Other important elements in the machinery were the hopper, a wooden box in the shape of an inverted pyramid through which the wheat dropped into the runner stone through the damsel; some metal wheels, which raised and lowered the runner stone to regulate the milling fineness and also the mechanism that opened the sluice from the inside to let water pass towards the spout floor and which worked almost as a switch to activate the mills.
Juan Lestache built his flour factory in a strategic enclave, both for production and transportation. On the one hand, the location of the last stretch of the río Xuvia made it possible for him to maximise the water power to efficiently move the French flint millstones. On the other hand, the mills were just by the Castile road in a navigable river section accessible by a small boat. This way, he had the chance to stock up on cereal to later send the produced flour by land –to the nearby baker’s shops– and by sea to Ferrol and itsharbour.
The mills also had a small pier accessed by a boat handled by five people. It would carry the Castilian wheat arriving at Ferrol’s harbour from Santander and further afield, such as Bordeaux, London, Hamburg, Saint Petersburg or Philadelphia in the United States.
For this long-distance transportation, he used two of his brigs and other boats specially chartered for the occasion, sometimes partnering with other merchants, such as Santiago Beujardín, also of a French origin and owner of the flour mills at the Aceas de Xuvia, in O Ponto (Narón). But not only did his intense commercial activity target cereal and flour but also imported numerous foreign articles such as leather from Agentina, campeachy wood from Mexico, wine from France, cod from Norway and Newfoundland and flax and hemp from Russia.
