Village
Valdemoro is a city of about 86,000 inhabitants in the Castilian comarca of La Sagra, south of Madrid, included in its metropolitan area. It received the title of town at the end of the 14th century, and its recent history is linked to the Guardia Civil, which trains its future members at the Duque de Ahumada Young Guards' College. Regarding the origin of its name, a legend circulates around the saying En balde, moro, te cansas ('in vain, Moor, you tire yourself'), referring to resistance against the Muslim invasion, although historians derive it rather from Val de Moro or from the Arabic Wadi al-murr, bitter river. Its Plaza de la Constitución, with arcades and the 1672 clock tower, retains its Castilian layout; the church of the Asunción holds paintings by Goya, Bayeu and Claudio Coello thanks to Pedro López de Lerena.
Monument
The plaza de la Constitución lies in the historic centre of Valdemoro, a few metres from the parish church and the fountain of la Villa. A rectangular square in the Castilian tradition with arcades and two-storey balconies, its origin goes back to the medieval commercial function, when periodic fairs and markets required a colonnaded setting to give shelter from sun and rain; every October it hosts the Feria Barroca, which recreates those old fairs. Around it stand the 16th-century town hall and the clock tower, built by Cristóbal Rodríguez de Jarama in 1672. It is the core of the town's historic-artistic ensemble, listed in the Registro General de Bienes de Interés Cultural (the Spanish state's general register of assets holding this protection) with the category of Monumento Histórico Artístico (Historic-Artistic Monument).
Monument
The main religious building of Valdemoro, an outstanding example of 18th-century Madrid religious architecture, built in several stages between the 17th and 18th centuries on an earlier temple. It has a Latin-cross plan, with a nave 60 by 28 metres flanked by four side chapels on each side and a dome on pendentives over the crossing; the façade, completed in 1764, opens with three round arches between Tuscan columns. On the main altar are gathered three canvases: Saint Peter Martyr, by Ramón Bayeu; The Assumption of the Virgin, by his brother Francisco; and The Virgin Appearing to Saint Julian, a minor work by Francisco de Goya but the most valuable piece in Valdemoro's artistic heritage. It also preserves a parish archive with documents dating from the 15th century and a Baroque organ from 1737.
Curiosity
Francisco Bayeu signed the Assumption that presides over the altarpiece in 1790 and subcontracted the side canvases to his brother Ramón and to his brother-in-law Francisco de Goya, author of the apparition of the Virgin to Saint Julian still preserved there.
Monument
A tower built in 1672 to designs by the architect Cristóbal Rodríguez de Jarama, attached to a 16th-century building whose façade was remodelled by Francisco de Mora in 1609; it has presided over the Plaza de la Constitución ever since.
Monument
The Fuente de la Villa de Valdemoro was built in 1605, following the fair privilege granted in 1603 by Philip III, at the instigation of the duke of Lerma. Carved from Colmenar stone, it has three spouts and is crowned by the earliest known coat of arms of the town; its original function was to serve as a watering trough for the livestock brought by the traders who came to the fair. It has undergone successive restorations since 1778, when work was carried out following Enlightenment criteria of ornamentation and hygiene, up to the most recent in 2004, focused on cleaning and repairing the stonework. It enjoys full protection in the municipal catalogue of protected assets and, since 2002, its declaration as a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) has been under consideration by the Ministry of Culture.
Monument
The convent of Santa Clara, or de la Encarnación, is a community of Franciscan Poor Clares founded in 1616 under the patronage of Francisco Gómez de Sandoval, duke of Lerma and lord of Valdemoro between 1602 and 1625; the design is the work of friar Alberto de la Madre de Dios, the most prominent architect of the time, who finished the plans in 1613 before leaving to build the Lerma complex. It is arranged around a square central cloister, and its façade combines masonry with bands of brick in the Toledan manner. The church, with a Latin-cross plan and a single nave under a barrel vault, retains an altarpiece with two 17th-century paintings, La Encarnación and El Calvario, and on its doorway the sculpture of Santa Clara alongside the coats of arms of the House of Lerma. It was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 2016.
Monument
A Baroque hermitage in Valdemoro that, owing to its successive rebuildings, combines several styles. It has a central nave covered by a barrel vault and six side chapels; of the old altarpieces only the one behind the main altar survives, Baroque, decorated with vine leaves and clusters of grapes and with Solomonic columns. It houses the image of the Cristo de la Salud, patron saint of the town, whose festival is held in early May with a procession to the church of Nuestra Señora del Rosario; the Guardia Civil takes part in the changing of the bearers and keeps a small altar of homage here, next to the Virgen del Pilar. It is protected as a Monumento Histórico Artístico (a former Spanish heritage-protection designation).
Monument
In 1855 the Guardia Civil bought the grounds of the ruined Real Fábrica de Paños Finos and commissioned the provincial architect Bruno Fernández de los Ronderos to design the building where the Corps's young guards have been trained ever since. The centre, headed by a colonel director, lies north of Valdemoro, 27 kilometres south of Madrid, and shares facilities with the Centro de Perfeccionamiento de la Guardia Civil and with units such as the Grupo de Reserva y Seguridad n.º 1 or the Escuadrón de Caballería. Only the children of Guardia Civil officers who belong to the Asociación Pro-Huérfanos del Cuerpo may enrol; after a first preparatory course they may compete for the restricted places, and if they pass the entrance examination they complete a second course as cadet guards.
Curiosity
Founded in 1712 by José Aguado Correa under the protection of Felipe V and with Flemish masters among its workers, the manufactory never became profitable and died out after its promoter's death in 1731; its site ended up turned into a barracks.
Curiosity
The El Espartal archaeological site, in Valdemoro, occupies the escarpments on the left bank of the arroyo de la Cañada and the río Jarama. The earliest signs of human presence are flint and quartzite stone tools from a temporary settlement; occupation resumes strongly in the Chalcolithic, with lithic material found in hut floors and the characteristic Ciempozuelos-type pottery. Hut floors and villages in strategic control positions also survive from the Bronze Age. Roman occupation is documented by a late Roman villa or vicus that lasted into the Hispano-Visigothic period. Declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), in the archaeological zone category, by Decree 20/1995 of 2 March, it protects 1,318 hectares with Copper Age and Bronze Age sites.
Nature
Gypsum slopes and esparto grassland looking out over the Jarama valley, with 746 hectares included in the South-East Regional Park; they are listed both as a Special Protection Area for Birds and as a Site of Community Importance.
Activity
The Feria Barroca de Valdemoro is a craft market that recreates the 17th century on the plaza de la Constitución in mid-October. It commemorates the fair privilege that Philip III granted the town in 1603 through the mediation of the Duke of Lerma, who a year earlier had acquired the lordship of Valdemoro. The first market, lasting eight days, was held in August 1603 to coincide with the Assumption; it was later moved to October, and in the 18th century Ferdinand VI extended it to twenty days. The privilege boosted the town's prosperity, with fledgling crafts alongside agriculture, until it lapsed in 1843. Revived in 2004, it includes firework displays, street parades with historical characters and food tastings, and drew as many as 20,000 visitors in 2007.
Activity
On 25 April the townspeople head out to the Bolitas del Airón park to eat the hornazo, the sweet bun proper to the day; the custom comes from the old rogation processions asking for prosperous harvests.
Curiosity
Baptised in the town in 1571, he entered the Society of Jesus in Toledo and accompanied Matteo Ricci to Beijing, where the two arrived on 24 January 1601; he wrote several works in Chinese and died in exile in Macao in 1618.
Nature
At some 440,000 square metres it is the largest green space in the municipality and its great suburban lung; every 25 April the townspeople gather on its meadow for the San Marcos country outing.
Historical milestone
The favourite of Felipe III acquired the town, which Felipe II had detached from the archbishopric of Toledo in 1577, and gave it impetus by instituting a fair and raising in 1605 the Fuente de la Villa to supply it.
Historical milestone
The creation here of a training centre for the corps, barely a decade after its founding, transformed the economy and the town planning of a town that had already received a station on the Madrid-Aranjuez line in 1851.