Calle Pastor

Pastor is the word for the man who guides and tends the flock, a trade as old as the droving routes that crossed the central plateau. On Calle Pastor, however, the name arrives without papers: no record survives of why it was chosen, nor whether it recalls a flesh-and-blood shepherd, a surname or the livestock that grazed here. Its short length explains why it went unnoticed in descriptions of the city’s streets. The ground matches that silence. Before it was built up in the late 19th century, this northern stretch of Chamberí was open country, with threshing floors and vegetable plots where livestock had its place. The neighbouring district of Vallehermoso itself owes its name to the open valley that lay here before the cobblestones. Today the word remains on a corner, with no explanation but itself.