Calle del Zarzalejo

Zarzalejo is a town of granite and stonemasons in Madrid’s Sierra Oeste, at the foot of two twin hills, Machota Alta and Machota Baja. Calle del Zarzalejo brings that mountain name to Cuatro Caminos, one more among the place names of Madrid villages that label streets in this part of Tetuán. The name comes from zarza, bramble, with the diminutive -ejo: a small place grown over with brambles. That corner of stone left its mark on the region’s most famous monument: granite from the Zarzalejo quarries was used to build the Monastery of El Escorial, and many of the masons who dressed it came from the town itself. So the sign on a narrow street in Cuatro Caminos keeps, without saying so, the memory of stonecutters who carved the stone of a royal monastery.