Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Alpedrete

What to see and do in Alpedrete (Cuenca del Guadarrama, Madrid): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

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

How far each place is from the centre of Alpedrete

Towns near Alpedrete

What to see in Collado Villalba 3.7 km · 4 places
What to see in Collado Mediano 4 km · 4 places
What to see in Guadarrama 5 km · 7 places
What to see in Moralzarzal 5.6 km · 2 places
What to see in Becerril de la Sierra 6.4 km · 2 places
What to see in Los Molinos 6.9 km · 5 places
What to see in Navacerrada 8.1 km · 6 places
What to see in Cercedilla 9.2 km · 13 places

Spain › Community of Madrid › Cuenca del Guadarrama › Alpedrete

What to see and do in Alpedrete

Alpedrete
Village
Alpedrete is a municipality of the Community of Madrid, with about 15,700 inhabitants, on the foothills of the sierra de Guadarrama, on the left bank of the Guadarrama river, within the Hoya de Villalba and at 919 metres above sea level. Independent from Collado Villalba since 1840, it owed much of its economic importance to granite quarrying, with nearly eighty quarries active between 1950 and 1970, which supplied the stone for the Monasterio de El Escorial, the Royal Palace of Madrid and the Valle de Cuelgamuros; this granite also travelled to the Almudena cathedral. The village today honours that trade in its Museo del Cantero. Its small old town, surrounded by holm oak and ash woods, has expanded with hotel colonies and numerous developments built over former meadows and dehesas.
Church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Alpedrete
Monument
The village's oldest monument preserves vestiges from the 12th and 13th centuries and additions from the time of the Catholic Monarchs; its granite ashlar fabric and massive walls give it an unmistakable air of a fortress.
Granite quarries of Alpedrete
Curiosity
The place name itself alludes to stone, and in the 1960s more than eighty quarries were working in the municipal district; granite from here went into the monastery of El Escorial, the Royal Palace and the Nuevos Ministerios.
Dehesa Boyal of Alpedrete
Nature
A municipal woodland of 105.26 hectares of Pyrenean oak and ash, listed as a public utility woodland since 1862; it preserves a public washing place built in 1950 with granite basins and a covered conduit bringing water from the Tablero stream.
The rise of Alpedrete's stonemasonry
Historical milestone
The building of the monastery of El Escorial (1563-1584) sent the demand for granite soaring and gave the stonemason's trade in Alpedrete a national reach. From its quarries later came the granite of the Royal Palace, the Puerta de Alcalá and the Bank of Spain.