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Dam of El Gasco

Torrelodones, Área Metropolitana, Madrid

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

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Dam of El Gasco

Monument · Torrelodones, Área Metropolitana, Madrid

An unfinished wall 53 metres high and 154 metres long, whose ruins stand at the meeting point of the municipalities of Torrelodones, Galapagar and Las Rozas de Madrid, in the northwest of the Comunidad de Madrid. It was designed between 1787 and 1799 by the military engineer Carlos Lemaur, of French origin, as a regulating dam for the Canal del Guadarrama, a work financed by the Banco de San Carlos and charged to the Hacienda Real of Charles III. The canal, which was likewise never completed, was meant to be navigable over 667 kilometres and to link Madrid with the Atlantic Ocean by joining the waters of the Guadarrama, the Manzanares, the Tagus at Aranjuez and the Guadalquivir at Seville. A storm burst the south side of the dam and the work was permanently abandoned on 15 May 1799.

Photo: Esetena (CC BY 3.0)

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