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Dam of the Pontón de la Oliva

Patones, Sierra Norte, Madrid

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

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Dam of the Pontón de la Oliva

Monument · Patones, Sierra Norte, Madrid

The dam of the Pontón de la Oliva, in the municipality of Patones, is the oldest in the entire dam system of the Canal de Isabel II, the network that supplies drinking water to Madrid. It was built in the mid-19th century on the Lozoya, in a natural gorge called the cerro de la Oliva, following the 1848 design of the engineers Juan Rafo and Juan de Ribera. The first stone was laid on 11 August 1851, attended by the prince consort Francisco de Asís de Borbón; on the works, until 1856, 1,500 prisoners from the Carlist Wars and 200 free labourers worked, in conditions so harsh that they caused a cholera epidemic. The karst of its basin let the reservoir seep away and it could never be properly exploited, which forced the damming of the waters further upstream.

Photo: Diego Sanz Siguero (Public domain)

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