Camino de Canillas

This road left Madrid heading north and ended at Canillas, a village that appears in thirteenth-century documents supplying the city with livestock, vegetables and hides. The place belonged to the Sexmo de Vallecas, and in 1252 Dominican nuns bought land in that district. The route started in the Guindalera and climbed north; at the Canillas end it matched what is now Calle Silvano. Madrid’s growth between the nineteenth century and the early twentieth swallowed the road into the urban fabric. One stretch survives, with a plaque, in the Guindalera, parallel to Calle México. Some still remember it first-hand. One resident recalls being born at number 30 of Calle Coslada when that address was still called Camino de Canillas.