Calle de la Bola

Ópera·Palacio

The name comes from a granite sphere that served as a corner guard on one of the street’s corners, protecting the building’s angle from the friction of carriages. This is the explanation recorded by Espinosa de los Monteros’s map (1769) and later by Pedro de Répide. An alternative version attributes it to a skittles game once played here.

In the Palacio quarter, it slopes gently down from plaza de la Encarnación to calle de Torija, brushing the Monastery of the Encarnación founded by Queen Margaret of Austria under Philip III. On Texeira’s 1656 map it appears as calle de la Encarnación. By 1769 neighbours already called it de la Bola: no one signed the change, custom imposed it, and custom looked to a granite ball set into a corner. During the Sexenio the council tried renaming it General Malcampo, but the tribute never caught on and the street went back to being la Bola. At number 5 the tavern La Bola is still open, born in 1802 as a drinks shop and turned into an eating house in 1870. Its family is now in its fourth generation at the helm, and the speciality has not changed: Madrid stew served in an individual pot over holm-oak charcoal.

Its names

  • Calle de la Encarnación17th century — c. 1769
  • Calle de la Bolac. 1769 — 1868
  • Calle del General Malcampo1868 — c. 1874
  • Calle de la Bolac. 1874 — actualidad
Sources (10)

Crossings