Travesía del Horno de la Mata
The name comes from the vanished calle del Horno de la Mata, of which this alley was an offshoot. The parent street took its name from a bakery on the site, whose ownership is attributed to Juan Mateo de la Mata, a private citizen who opened it to supply the neighbourhood with bread when the ovens of Villanueva and Vallecas could no longer keep up. The alley received this name in 1863, replacing the earlier “calle del Viento”.
In the Universidad quarter, the Travesía del Horno de la Mata links the streets of Concepción Arenal and Mesonero Romanos. It bears the name of a street that no longer exists: before 1863 it was called calle del Viento, until the council transferred to it the name of the neighbouring street to end the duplicates. That parent street, wiped off the map by the Gran Vía expropriations, survives only in the alley’s name.
The bakery that names the whole made its way into literature. Pío Baroja places it in La busca as the workshop where young Manuel learns the trade under a German baker. Baroja knew the ground well: his uncle owned a bakery.
The street also kept political secrets. In 1854 General O’Donnell hid here while plotting the uprising that opened the Progressive Biennium.
Its names
- Calle del Vientoanterior a 1863
- Travesía del Horno de la Mata1863 — actualidad
Sources (6)
- Travesía del Horno de la Mata: huérfana de la calle que le dio nombre (Somos Malasaña / eldiario.es, 2011)
- Travesía del Horno de la Mata — Madripedia
- Calle del Horno de la Mata — Madripedia
- Calle de Concepción Arenal — Wikipedia
- Horno de la Mata, Travesía del — El rincón de Mayrit (blog, 2014; fuente: Isabel Gea, Los nombres de las calles de Madrid, 5.ª ed., 1993)
- Travesía del Horno de la Mata — Las calles del viejo Madrid