Calle del Correo

Barely a hundred metres separate the Puerta del Sol from the Plaza del Marqués Viudo de Pontejos, and between those two ends lies much of Madrid’s postal history. The carriages that delivered the city’s mail came and went through here, and the street of the mail — Calle del Correo — owes its name to that traffic. The west side is taken up by the Royal Post House, built between 1760 and 1768 by the French architect Jaime Marquet for Charles III. The street lived close to the pulse of the news, partly for its nearness to the courtyard of the convent of San Felipe el Real, the town’s great rumour-mill. Mendizábal’s disentailment tore down San Felipe in the 1830s, and on its plot rose the Casas de Cordero and the Plaza de Pontejos. By the 20th century the postal service moved to Cibeles, and the Post House changed trade: today it is the seat of the presidency of the Community of Madrid. The street’s name stayed on long after the mail had left the place.