Beyond its vital historical value, the settlement of Anavatos is noteworthy thanks to the unique construction techniques used in its buildings. The “Three-storey” building dominates the eastern and only entrance to the Kastro. It once housed a “Loutrouvio” (an olive press), a school, a cistern and the church of the Virgin.
The olive press was housed on the ground floor. Here, olives would be crushed under large millstones to extract their oil. Above, the first floor housed the school (consisting of two rooms) and the cistern, where rainwater would be gathered via large clay channels to provide a source of water for the settlement in the event of a siege.
The roof of the cistern was the floor of the church of the Presentation of the Virgin, itself covered by a saddleback roof. The church celebrates its feast day on 21 November. The Bema preserves a fresco of the Pantokrator dated to the 19th century. The south-eastern floor exhibits evidence of the Turkish massacre of 1822.
A short distance north-west, just above the Church, the so-called Prison, Court and Secret School stand, while the Fortified church of the Taxiarch dominates the crest of the Citadel, the highest point of the Kastro. During the massacre of Chios in 1822, the Turks torched the church, which was rebuilt in the aftermath only to be destroyed again in the 1881 earthquake.
Nearby and to the north-west of the Taxiarch stands the ruined house of Psaros, where the residents of Anavatos barricaded themselves and fended off a Turkish attack from the Amoni heights. The church of the Taxiarch that stands in the modern-day settlement of Anavatos was erected in the wake of the 1881 earthquake and celebrates on 8 November.