Calle de la Viña Virgen

The name joins two images that went hand in hand in the Castilian countryside: the vineyard and the Virgin. Across the plateau it was common to place vineyards under Marian patronage, and Our Lady of the Vineyards has long been venerated in wine-growing villages. Which estate or which image this street in the Almenara district points to was never recorded. The area had an agricultural past. Before it was built up, this northern strip belonged to Chamartín de la Rosa, a town of orchards and country houses that Madrid absorbed in 1948. When it was divided among the new districts, part of the street map had to be redone, since many names clashed with those downtown, and rural-flavored signs like this one survived those adjustments. Calle de la Viña Virgen is one of those place names the neighborhood kept from the countryside once the countryside was gone.