Village
Gomezserracín, in the province of Segovia and crossed by the autovía de Pinares, was founded in the 13th century by the Burgos-born noble Gómez Sarracín, settled in the villa of Cuéllar, who gave the place its name; he was the father of Fernando Sarracín, who became bishop of Segovia. In the mid-19th century it had 364 inhabitants, almost half of today's 614. Its church is dedicated to Santa María Magdalena, its patroness celebrated on 22 July with the year's biggest festivities, which are added to those of San Antonio de Padua, patron of the village, on 13 June, and to the procession of San Isidro Labrador on 15 May, when the saint's image is paraded adorned with sprigs and flowers. Among its notable residents is the writer and Cortes procurador Francisco Guillén Salaya.
Historical milestone
Gomezserracín, in the province of Segovia, arose in the 13th century and took its name from Gómez Sarracín, a Castilian nobleman from a Burgos family of ricoshombres established in religious life: his uncles were an archdeacon, an abbot and a prior, and his brothers a canon and dean of Burgos cathedral. Settled in the town of Cuéllar, where his son Fernando Sarracín was born, he founded on those lands the place that would bear his name. Backed by his uncle the dean, Fernando Sarracín rose within the Church until he held the episcopal see of Segovia between 1301 and 1318; in 1313 he founded in the church of Santa María de la Cuesta two anniversary masses for the souls of his parents, which suggests that Gómez Sarracín and his wife, whose name is unknown, may have been buried there.
Monument
The parish church is dedicated to Santa María Magdalena, patroness of the municipality, whose feast is held on 22 July; it is the landmark building of a village of a little over six hundred inhabitants.
Curiosity
The municipal coat of arms approved in 2016 brings together four symbols in silver: a bell tower, a cow, a tench and a pine, a heraldic summary of the church, the stock raising, the lagoons and the wood that define the village.
Activity
The festive calendar is shared between San Isidro Labrador on 15 May, San Antonio de Padua on 13 June, patron of the village, and Santa María Magdalena on 22 July, the patroness to whom the parish is dedicated.
Monument
The presbytery of Santa María Magdalena is covered with a Mudéjar roof of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of eight-pointed star interlace polychromed in red, blue and gold, executed with Muslim building techniques.
Monument
On the outside of the church the bell gable raised in 1699 stands out, with a wrought iron balcony beneath the small belfry; its silvered silhouette became the emblem of the village and figures on the municipal coat of arms.
Monument
Of the original fabric of the church, of the thirteenth century, a doorway survives that combines rubble masonry and brick, the mixed technique characteristic of the churches of the Tierra de Pinares raised after the resettlement.
Monument
The church preserves several Baroque altarpieces with carvings of quality: Santa María Magdalena, San Roque, San Nicolás de Bari and the Cristo de la Guía, spread through the three naves of the church.
Monument
On the outskirts of the village, within the cemetery enclosure, stands the hermitage of the Santo Cristo del Humilladero, the second religious building of the municipal district and a stopping point of funeral processions.
Curiosity
Inside Santa María Magdalena a Romanesque baptismal font of semi-oval form decorated with gadroons is preserved, the oldest piece of the church and evidence of the church that preceded the present one.
Nature
The municipal district preserves several lagoons of sandy origin: that of El Señor, on the cañada de la Reina, that of La Juncosa and that of Navalengua, seasonal wetlands that dot the landscape between pine woods and market garden fields.
Nature
At 803 metres of altitude, the municipal district extends over great surfaces of sand on which numerous hollows and lagoons have formed; those loose soils explain both the pine woods and the present market gardening.
Nature
The Parroñas stream runs through the municipal district and waters the good meadows that sustained the cattle and the churra wool sheep described in the nineteenth century, in a landscape of small pine woods and tilled lands.
Historical milestone
Fernando Sarracín, son of the Burgos nobleman who founded the place in the thirteenth century, occupied the episcopal see of Segovia between 1301 and 1318, a rise that explains the weight of this family in the comarca of Cuéllar.
Curiosity
The residents of Gomezserracín are not called gomezserracinenses but corbatos and corbatas, a popular demonym of uncertain origin that has completely displaced the one derived from the place name in the speech of the comarca.
Curiosity
From this village of little more than six hundred inhabitants came Francisco Guillén Salaya, journalist, writer and union leader who rose to be a member of the Cortes, the best-known native beyond the Carracillo.
Food and drink
Madoz's dictionary praised in the nineteenth century the exquisite tench fished in the lagoons of the municipal district; the fish is still the most identity-laden mouthful of the place and figures, in silver, on the municipal coat of arms.
Food and drink
The comarca of the Carracillo, to which Gomezserracín belongs, devotes some 840 hectares to the production of strawberry mother plants and supplies with them somewhat more than half the national market for large strawberries.
Activity
On 22 July, the day of the patroness, the village's main festival is held, the largest of the calendar, which adds to that of San Antonio de Padua of 13 June and to that of San Isidro with the streets decked with branches on 15 May.