Flour Factory “Santa María”/ Antonio Espadas Pérez Museum

• Peñarroya-Pueblonuevo

The Flour Factory “Santa María” of Peñarroya-Pueblonuevo is an industrial building from the early twentieth century, which retains the main body where wheat and other by-products were cleaned, conditioned, milled and packaged.
It was in operation until the beginning of the last decade of the same century, passing through different owners, from the SMMP (Sociedad Minero Metalúrgica de Peñarroya) to the last owner Antonio Espadas Pérez and his family, who gave this building together with the original machinery of Swiss origin, from the house DAVERIO, which is preserved inside and that you will be able to see during your visit to the museum.
At the beginning, the machinery of the factory was steam driven and later operated by means of electric motors and always with a vertical production system during which the wheat went up and down through the different plants several times, until it was packaged in the form of flour, wheat bran or meal, both for human consumption and for animal feed.
All the land belonging to the flour factory occupied approximately one hectare, divided between the stable, warehouses, carpentry, bakery, entrance garden, truck area, etc., including four chimneys, one of which has been preserved, which corresponds to one of the large ovens that the bakery had.
In the best times of this sector, the daily production of this factory reached approximately 10,000 kilos of flour, even participating in exports to different countries such as Egypt, Russia and Syria, since only 30% of the flour produced was consumed in Spain.