Logbook · 8 places

What to see and do in San Morales

What to see and do in San Morales (Las Villas, Salamanca): 8 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Activities · 1 Curiosities · 2 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of San Morales

The watermill of la Fuente and its fish weir 1.5 km

Towns near San Morales

What to see in Aldearrubia 1.7 km · 7 places
What to see in Huerta 4 km · 9 places
What to see in Aldealengua 4.1 km · 5 places
What to see in Cabezabellosa de la Calzada 5.7 km · 2 places
What to see in Gomecello 6.2 km · 3 places
What to see in Babilafuente 6.7 km · 9 places
What to see in Calvarrasa de Abajo 6.8 km · 2 places
What to see in Moriscos 7 km · 2 places

Spain › Castile and León › Salamanca › Las Villas › San Morales

What to see and do in San Morales

San Morales
Village
San Morales is a municipality in the comarca of Las Villas, in the province of Salamanca, formed by San Morales itself and the hamlet of the Aceña de la Fuente, with 346 inhabitants over barely 4.92 km². It is documented as Salmorales in the 13th century, a name that would allude to fields with saline soil, a toponymic type —salmoral— repeated elsewhere in the province, such as the village of Salmoral. The municipal area, divided by the río Tormes, is devoted mainly to irrigated farming, with maize as the main crop, alongside potatoes, sugar beet, wheat and sunflowers, as well as pastures for beef cattle on the riverbank. In its small municipal area, of less than five square kilometres, at least three Roman sites are known, badly damaged by agricultural work.
The watermill of la Fuente and its fish weir
Monument
In the annexed settlement of Aceña de la Fuente the weir is preserved that diverted the water of the Tormes towards the mill to use its force in grinding grain, one of the few hydraulic works of the river's middle stretch still standing.
The remains of the San Bricio watermill
Monument
On the Tormes, on the eastern boundary of the municipal district with Aldearrubia, the remains of the water mill of San Bricio emerge, a flour mill active in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and badly damaged by the San Policarpo flood of 1626.
The Roman site of El Cenizal
Nature
The municipal district preserves at least three Roman sites heavily degraded by farming work; the oldest, El Cenizal, corresponds to a villa or rural house of the fertile floodplains of the Tormes and has also yielded Visigothic-period slates.
A Saint Bartholomew traded for a verraco
Curiosity
Legend tells that San Morales had two images of San Bartolomé and Huerta two stone verracos; the residents exchanged a saint for a verraco to cover their sows, and since then both towns share the same patron saint.
The Ensenada Cadastre in San Morales
Historical milestone
The survey of the Ensenada Cadastre was taken here on 25 October 1752 and describes a dry-farming municipal district divided into plots with names such as Las Herias de Nuestra Señora del Río, La Ofita or Las Cordoneras, plus the deserted settlement of San Pedro.
The disentailments and the House of Alba
Historical milestone
Until the Mendizábal and Madoz disentailments (1836 and 1855), much of the municipality belonged to the House of Alba and to the Salamanca convent of Santa Clara; throughout the comarca of Las Villas it was that noble house that appointed the corregidor of justice.
The feast of Saint Bartholomew
Activity
San Morales, in the Salamancan comarca of Las Villas, celebrates on 24 August the feast of its patron saint, San Bartolomé, the same saint venerated in neighbouring Huerta. Local tradition explains why: the village had two images of the saint and Huerta had two stone boar sculptures (verracos), and the people of San Morales, in need of breeding livestock, exchanged one of their images for one of the boar sculptures; since then the two localities have shared the same patron saint. It is the only patronal feast of a municipality of barely four square kilometres.