Travesía de Herrera
A short travesía that takes its name, with no documented reason of its own, from the calle de Herrera it links to in Valdeacederas.
The Travesía de Herrera is a short stretch that links up with the calle de Herrera, in the Valdeacederas neighborhood. Like so many travesías, it owes its name, borrowed, to the street it stitches to.
The word “herrera” points to ironwork: the smithy, the place where metal is forged and hammered. Which sense weighed at the naming has not been preserved, nor whether it meant to evoke a forge, a landowner, or simply a name.
Valdeacederas grew on the outskirts of nineteenth-century Madrid as market-garden land, and its name recalls the wild sorrel of the valley. As it was built up, several streets took the surnames of former plot owners; there is no record that Herrera was one of them. Today the travesía goes almost unnoticed, a kink among modest façades a step from the Valdeacederas metro.