Calle de Redrueña

The Calle de Redueña names Redueña, a tiny village in Madrid’s Sierra Norte set in the middle Jarama valley, more than eight hundred metres above sea level. The sign joins a custom of the Ciudad Jardín area, where several streets bear the names of towns in the province. Redueña gathers barely a couple of hundred residents, yet its stone reached the heart of Madrid: its quarries supplied material for the fountains of Cibeles and Apolo. Its church of San Pedro Advíncula rises over Visigothic remains, and in the old cemetery a Gothic cross survives atop a column dated to the 13th or 14th century. The village passed through the crown’s hands, which even sold it off in the 16th century; the residents paid to buy it back and remain under royal Castile. From that story of purchase and reconquest, all that remains today is a quiet cluster of houses among holm oaks.