Calle Alpedrete

The calle de Alpedrete owes its name to a town in the Guadarrama range, northwest of Madrid, set on bedrock. From its quarries came the grey granite that raised the El Escorial Monastery, the Royal Palace and other buildings in the capital. For centuries the stonecutters came down from the mountains dressing blocks for Madrid, a trade that made the place famous. The place name is born of the rock itself. It comes from the late Latin petretu, “stony ground,” formed on petra (“stone”), and to that root the Arabic article al- was later added. The street belongs to the Atocha neighbourhood, in Arganzuela, an area of southern Madrid whose streets take the names of towns in the region. It is a short street, like the others nearby named after mountain villages.