Calle de Ceuta

Few streets in Valdeacederas hold the echo of a war as much as this one. Ceuta, the Spanish city looking out over the Strait opposite Gibraltar, lies at the very origin of the conflict that named the whole neighbourhood. In August 1859 the Rif tribes attacked the troops guarding the fortification works around the city, and Leopoldo O’Donnell’s government responded with a declaration of war on Morocco. From there set out the campaign that took Tetuán in February 1860. On its return, the victorious army camped in the Amaniel commons, north of Madrid, awaiting a triumphal entry that was never held. Around that camp a cluster of houses grew, inheriting the memory of the African venture. The neighbourhood took the name of Tetuán de las Victorias, and its streets came to be called after the milestones of the war: Castillejos, Wad-Ras, Sierra Bullones… and Ceuta, the city where it had all begun.