Village
Hoyo de Manzanares is a municipality in the northwest of the Community of Madrid, on the southern slope of the sierra of the same name, one of the most important monte-isla (isolated mountain) formations on the southern side of Guadarrama, about ten kilometres from it. It has about 9,300 inhabitants at 1,001 metres of altitude and is spread over five settlements, among them the historic village and the Ciudad Residencial La Berzosa. Its entire territory lies within the Parque Regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, declared a Biosphere Reserve in 1993. It preserves granite architecture, the Visigothic necropolis of La Cabilda and the Fiesta de la Caldereta; its medieval repopulation, around 1247, was carried out by shepherds from Segovia.
Activity
Declared a Festival of Regional Tourist Interest, in early September it gathers the townspeople around the cauldrons in which the meat of the fought bull is stewed; the stew is then handed out in the Plaza Mayor during the patron saint festivities.
Nature
Early medieval hamlet at the foot of the Sierra de Hoyo, with a good twenty buildings and graves carved into the granite, dated to the 7th century. Its necropolis came to light in 1999 when the cemetery was extended, and since 2014 it has been excavated each season with volunteers. The site takes its name from the protected natural area in which it lies, a few hundred metres from the town centre, and shows evidence of occupation from Antiquity, in the 7th century, through to the Middle Ages, in the 13th century. Among the finds are twenty-three structures, a millstone, an iron ingot, several spindle whorls, two graves carved into a granite boulder, pottery, an earring of silver and copper alloy, a ring bezel with a Latin inscription, and a weight.
Nature
At 1,403 metres it is the highest point of the district of Hoyo de Manzanares and the main summit of its sierra, a granite massif split off from the Guadarrama ridge and separated from it by the valley of the Manina stream.
Monument
A single-naved granite church begun in the 15th century and finished in the 17th, between the Plaza Mayor and the Plaza de la Iglesia. Its original porch was replaced during the works of 1983 to 1986 and the building now houses the municipal theatre Las Cigüeñas.
Nature
Granite massif detached from the main ridge of Guadarrama, strewn with granite boulder fields (berrocales and canchales) that repeat on a smaller scale the maze of La Pedriza; a small climbing school for slabs and cracks was opened on its slopes. Geologically it belongs to the sierra de Guadarrama, from which it is separated by about ten kilometres of flat land, and it takes its name from Hoyo de Manzanares, the municipality settled on its southern slope. It is part of the Parque Regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, declared a biosphere reserve on 15 February 1993, which also extends over La Pedriza and the Santillana reservoir. Its highest peak is El Estepar, at 1,402 metres, and the sierra is visible from a great distance, especially on its south side, facing Madrid.
Curiosity
The municipal cemetery brings together three adjoining enclosures: the Christian one, a Jewish one and the one set aside for the victims of Franco's repression, an unusual coexistence in the cemeteries of the Madrid sierra.
Nature
An early medieval village excavated since 2014 at the foot of the Sierra de Hoyo de Manzanares, with at least twenty-two structures, a necropolis and domestic and working areas; the excavation seasons place it in use between the 6th and 9th centuries.
Historical milestone
The 7th Duke of El Infantado signed in 1630 the granting of the title of town to a place of barely sixty households. The boundary settlement with Galapagar was closed on 11 July following and put an end to three centuries of vassalage to the ducal house.
Historical milestone
The expropriation of several estates formed a firing and manoeuvre range of more than two thousand hectares that changed the economy of the village. The Army Engineers Academy moved definitively to the municipality in 1986.
Food and drink
The caldereta de toro de lidia is a stew typical of the northern Community of Madrid, eaten at the patron-saint festivals of various towns, though it has also spread to Guadalajara and Extremadura. It originated in Hoyo de Manzanares in 1787, the year the village was founded, attributed to the bullfighter nicknamed “Filigranas” or “El Calderetero”, famous in the 18th century for cooking the bulls he himself fought. It is made with lean fighting-bull meat — traditionally the tail, very gelatinous — and potatoes, stewed with onion, carrot, pepper, white wine and fried tomato, with garlic, oil and, sometimes, a splash of cognac; it is handed out in sandwiches in the square during the patron-saint festivals in early September. The tradition was declared a fiesta de interés turístico regional (a regional tourist-interest designation) in 2011.