Calle de los Cabestreros

Between Mesón de Paredes and Embajadores, in the heart of Lavapiés, a street preserves the trade that once filled it with busy hands: here worked the halter-makers (cabestreros), hemp rope-makers who twisted the fibre into lead-ropes, halters and harnesses. On such gear depended the Madrid that came before machines. The guild truly took root: it bought land to build a chapel to its patron, Saint Anthony the Abbot. At the crossing with Mesón de Paredes flowed a fountain the neighbourhood nicknamed “of the Studs” or “of the Braggarts”, believing its waters boosted virility. A verse ran: “He’s a stud because he’s drunk the water of Cabestreros”. The current one, from 1934, is one of only two fountains with Republican symbolism to survive in the city. In time the workshops moved towards Toledo. The name, however, stayed where it had been born.