Calle de la Cebada

A narrow street in the Palacio quarter, between calle de Toledo and the plaza del Humilladero, near where the Puerta de Moros stood. The land belonged for centuries to the Order of Calatrava, and the plaza de la Cebada beside it rose over an Islamic necropolis. Before, it was plaza del Viento (of the Wind): the harvest was winnowed there, the breeze separating grain from chaff. In the 16th century the trade shifted towards selling cereal, the place became a fixed market and the word Cebada (Barley) took hold. In the 18th century it hosted Madrid’s great fairs. Early in the 19th century the square replaced the Plaza Mayor as the public scaffold. There Rafael del Riego died on 7 November 1823, and there the bandit Luis Candelas was garrotted in 1837. In 1875 a covered market of iron and glass inspired by Les Halles opened, which the council demolished in 1956 citing a ruinous state that the reports denied.