Uncategorized
Mesaria
THE OLD INDUSTRIAL CORE OF SANTORINI
ANTONIOS MARKEZINIS SOCKS INDUSTRY
The cultivation and significant production of Theran cotton with its characteristic reddish color in recent times led to the need to create processing units for the processing of cotton in Thera. The specific factory is located in the center of Messaria, at the point where the area’s streams end. From 1889, a small unit operated there, which evolved in 1912 into “PLEKTIRIA MARKEZINI” with 200 machines and 150 workers. It produced socks and jerseys and supplied the Greek army. It closed around 1940. The factory consists of single-story and single-story oblong buildings, constructed of local stone and featuring large metal-framed openings and wooden tiled roofs. Nowadays, the buildings are abandoned and unused, despite their central position.
OLD VENETSANOS WINERY
Nearby from the aforementioned socks industry is the old winery of A. Venetsanos, a 19th-century building and a preserved monument of industrial heritage. The family continues the tradition now in a winery in the area of Megalochori and this building is now abandoned.The rectangular building has a ground floor and includes three consecutive domes inside. It has a portico and a retreat on the facade with cross vaults. It is also made of local materials and has a well-preserved chimney.
NOMIKOS OLD KANAVA
Adjacent to the old Markezinis socks industry is an old kanava belonging to Nomikos family, which predate the year 1955. These are four wineries- wine presses for the preparation and storage of wine, ground floors in a row. All the spaces are vaulted with the traditional Theran domes. The old plasters are worn out and have external and internal damage. The window frames of the few parts that are preserved were wooden, traditionally of a dark tile color. Inside the building are preserved the old winepresses as well as the corresponding winepresses in which the must flowed from the pressing of the grapes. Τhe must was drawn from the lees with wooden buckets and transferred to the wooden barrels placed lengthwise in a horizontal position in the rest of the spaces on the canvases. The domes in the kanava are covered with a flat roof according to traditional standards. On these roofs, they spread the red grapes in the sun for the production of the well-known “vinsanto” wine.
LISTED WINDMILLS
In the western part of Messaria, in the wider area of the former industrial core, two windmills are recorded. The first is built at a crossroads, near the old Markezini socks factory. It is a remarkable ruin that reveals the architecture and construction of the Theran windmills. The stone-built building is located on a raised circular base, which maintains auxiliary spaces for the reception and concentration of the grains and grinds. In the existing state, the tower lacks the upper part (wooden cupola and wing). The second windmill is built a little further west, on the road leading to the caldera and adjacent to a neighboring private residence. Its construction and its size are reminiscent of the aforementioned description, following the typology of the elevated circular plan and the main tower. The windmills in the area of Messaria were listed in the Permanent List of Archaeological Sites and Monuments of Greece in 1992, as historically preserved monuments, as “typical examples of the local traditional architectural memory of the structures of the economy of the past”.
