The ‘’Granafei’’ underground oil mill

Located near the Filia city gate,  the entrance to Sternatia’s old town, on the same place once occupied by the garden of the palace of the marquis, the Granafei is the only functional underground oil mill of a network of 19 oil mills connected in the past through a network of underground walkways.

Used ever since the 19th century,  it is made up of several chambers, among which two used for the oil pressing, two dining tables and two drains. The Granafei was the most important oil mill in town at least up until 1700, when another, semi-hypogeum oil mill was built near the Dominican monastery, which was owned by the friars.

It is accessed via a staircase covered with a barrel vault which leads into a chamber fitted out with tanks and millstones and lit by sunshine slanting through a skylight. Calabrese and Genovese press types were used to press the olive paste which was subsequently collected in large tanks and extracted with a large peel-like shovel by the nachiro, the oil mill manager.