Plaza de Gilhou

Behind this distinctly un-Spanish surname stands a Frenchman who left his mark north of Madrid. Louis Guilhou Rives, a financier and industrialist, settled in Spain in the first half of the nineteenth century and began buying land in nearby Chamartín de la Rosa. There he set up a bakery and a tannery, raised a villa with gardens, and gathered such wealth that his residence came to be known as the palacio de Gilhou, still standing beside the Paseo de La Habana. The Spanish spelling left the surname as Gilhou, with the silent h that trips up first-time readers. The square arose in the working-class extension of Valdeacederas, as those outskirts were built over old orchards and streams. It is a small square, of the kind that gives more shade than prominence. Under its privets, elms and the odd cedar there is room for a bench in the shelter, beneath the surname of a French entrepreneur who changed the landscape of northern Madrid.