Ruin of a late-medieval towerhouse at the left side of the road from Kalavarda to Salakos, about halfway.

Castle Description

General description
To the east of the 6 km long road from Kalavarda to Salakos, about halfway through, stands a tower house of unknown function and unknown construction time. Immediately behind the building, a flat hill rises, which exalts it, thus largely excluding a function as a defensive structure. On the hill the Agia Anna chapel is located. In the British “Admiralty chart 1667” of 1841, the building is registered as a mill, and in fact it stands next to a water mill. Therefore, the British archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton (1816-1894) interpreted the complex as a “tower” built by the Knights of St. John next to a water mill (I, 1865, p. 235: “an old tower built by the Knights, by the side of a watermill”). Peter Lock (2006), on the other hand, saw no signs of a construction of the building by the Knights of St. John and no indications of a date for a later extension or conversion.

The building measures about 20✖40 m with the mill building and the construction for the mill wheel, added in 1841. Lock's presumption that it was a country house rather than a “tower” is to be agreed, as does his assessment that the door and window frames of the house speak for its creation in the 15th/early 16th century and the quality of the construction for a high rank of the builder. However, a possible connection to the Order remains unclear for the time being.

Access (route / entrance)
By car: Follow the 6 km long road from Kalavarda to Salakos, about halfway through, you will find the towerhouse on the left side of the road.
Free access.

History of the castle/tower
Unknown.

Other Info

Sources