Calle de Arganda

The name refers to a town in southeastern Madrid, Arganda del Rey, set on the valley of the Jarama and surrounded by vineyards that for centuries supplied wine to the capital. The street belongs to a sector of Arganzuela where several streets recall towns of the province. The Arganzuela district itself was born, tradition holds, of a group of farmers who came from Arganda and built a hamlet on the meadow beside the Manzanares, naming it Arganduela, “little Arganda”, which Madrid speech gradually filed down to Arganzuela. The meaning of the place name is unclear. Some trace it to a pre-Roman root linked to water, others to the pale colour of the limestone soil of the area. The surname “del Rey” does have a date: it came when Philip II made the town a royal domain in 1583, after it paid ten thousand ducats to the Crown to free itself from any other lordship.