Calle del Carnero

Calle del Carnero runs down from the Ribera de Curtidores towards Calle de Arganzuela, in the heart of the Rastro, and its name smells of an old trade. In the 17th century this area south of Madrid held the municipal slaughterhouse and the guilds that lived off the killing of animals: tanners, tallow-makers and butchers. Earlier it was called Calle Nueva, the label 16th- and 17th-century Madrid gave to any newly opened street. Its present name came from the trade that defined it: the butchers and market inspectors sold ram meat here and, each year during the feast of St Lawrence, held a raffle of livestock. The Rastro’s stalls ruled here for centuries. Today the street keeps its working-class air among antique shops and the sellers who each Sunday carry on the market’s tradition.