Calle de la Huerta del Obispo

Before the apartment blocks and the sidewalks came, there was farmland here. A wide vegetable garden reaching as far as Cuatro Caminos, owned by a bishop of whom no record remains: his name, the diocese he governed and the century in which he held these fields north of Madrid are all unknown. What did remain was the name, carved on the entrance arch of the estate, where the prelate kept a farmhouse. From that garden came far more than a street name. It named one of Tetuán’s historic neighborhoods, and a nearby park still bears it, between Villamil and the Paseo de la Dirección. The estate shrank over the years, from the bishop to a priest and, already much reduced, to the Augustinian fathers, who built a school on it. Whoever walks la Huerta del Obispo will find no trace of furrows or irrigation ditches. The name remains, having outlived the garden, the arch and the anonymous bishop who once owned it.