Engenho Da Calheta, dated 1901, has hosted a relevant museum space since 2014. Before that, it was also the home of the Sociedade dos Engenhos da Calheta, established on May 27, 1952 following the merger of several mills in this municipality in the middle of the 20th century. due to the monopoly of Fábrica do Torreão, in Funchal, belonging to the Hinton family.
The Museum focuses essentially on the history of the factory, its activity of transforming sugar cane into honey and cane rum, which is evident with the display of some pieces from the 19th and 20th centuries that are found in the mill, as well as industrial archaeological artefacts.
Engenho itself has always been a tourist attraction in the region. The factory has a great deal of publicity experience with the daily visit of hundreds of tourists interested in the process of making honey and brandy, as well as the historical component of the mill itself.
A bi-lingual film with various graphics depicting the sugarcane production process (harvest, transport, crushing, fermentation, distillation and bottling of sugar cane spirit) is also shown on the premises.
This is one of the first museum spaces dedicated exclusively to sugar cane on Madeira Island.
Sugarcane played a particularly relevant role in the early population of the archipelago and made it famous for the quality of the sugar it produced throughout Europe from the 15th century onwards.
Engenho da Calheta is one of the few mills that remain from the second wave of sugar cane production that occurred in the 19th century.