Calle de Algeciras

La Latina·Palacio

The street owes its name to Algeciras, a town in the province of Cádiz whose place-name comes from the Arabic Al-Yazira al-Jadra (“the green island”). Before taking this geographic name, the street was called del Argollón, a term the chroniclers do not explain. The change is not precisely dated in the municipal register, but predates Peñasco y Cambronero’s edition (1889).

Calle de Algeciras is barely long enough for a sigh: a short stretch dropping between the Cuesta de las Descargas and the Ronda de Segovia, at the foot of the Vistillas hill, along the southern edge of medieval Madrid that led from the walled town down to the Manzanares meadow. It was once called Argollón, and the name holds a whole scene. Argollón is the augmentative of argolla: those iron rings driven into the suburb walls to tether the pack animals. Mule trains came and went here, and from that daily traffic the name arose, one that probably fell with the 19th-century council purge of trade place-names. That it ended up called Algeciras may have to do with an illustrious neighbour: the church of San Pedro el Viejo, whose Mudéjar tower Alfonso XI had raised around 1344 to celebrate the taking of Algeciras. No document confirms it, but the coincidence is hard to ignore.

Its names

  • Calle del ArgollónAnterior al 19th century (fecha exacta sin documentar)
  • Calle de AlgecirasSiglo 19th (anterior a 1889), vigente
Sources (7)

Crossings