Village
Fuente Álamo de Murcia is a municipality in the Región de Murcia, in the Campo de Cartagena comarca, 38 km from the capital, with a deep-rooted farming and livestock tradition now joined by industrial activity centred on its technology parks, and residential tourism. It has around 19,000 inhabitants. Its terrain is dominated by a central plain crossed by the rambla de Fuente Álamo, which collects the waters of the surrounding sierras on their way to the Mar Menor; the highest point is the Pico de los Filos, 1,062 metres, in the sierra de Carrascoy. The dry Mediterranean climate is disrupted in autumn by cold-drop episodes, such as that of 1986, which led to the rambla being channelled, or that of 2012, when 150 litres per square metre fell in a few hours.
Monument
Church dedicated to Saint Augustine of Hippo, patron saint of the municipality, whose construction dates back to the 16th century, although in 1736 it was found in a state of ruin and underwent a thorough reconstruction, completed with its portal in 1783, which gave it the Baroque and Neoclassical appearance it retains today. It attained parish status in 1582, the first in the Campo de Cartagena-Mar Menor area, ahead of those of Torre Pacheco or San Javier, and wealthy local landowners exercised the patronage and upkeep of its chapels for centuries. It is declared Historic Heritage and its declaration as a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) is being processed.
Monument
Considered the first church that Fuente Álamo de Murcia had, the hermitage of Saint Roch was built in the 16th century, around 1530, although there is no certainty about its exact origin. It consists of a single nave with semicircular arches and a small room next to the altar that served as a sacristy. The first written reference dates from 1603, when the council of Lorca donated a fanega of land to the hermitage. Restored in 2001, it today functions as an exhibition hall and hosts intense cultural activity throughout the year.
Monument
Former 16th-century oil mill that forms part of the industrial and ethnographic heritage of Fuente Álamo, evidence of the local farming tradition.
Monument
Neoclassical church built in the 18th century in Fuente Álamo, one of the municipality's main places of worship.
Nature
Group of geological fissures in limestone strata where remains of Neolithic settlements have been found, one of the most unusual heritage features in the municipal district of Fuente Álamo.
Monument
Archaeological site with two enclosures, a walled settlement and a fortified area serving as a bastion on the north face of the hill, with Neolithic, Celtiberian and Roman remains on its summit.
Curiosity
The municipality is organised into nine hamlets — Las Palas, Balsapintada, Cuevas de Reyllo, La Pinilla, El Estrecho, Los Cánovas, Los Almagros, Los Paganes and El Escobar — Las Palas being the one of greatest archaeological importance.
Activity
The Fiestas de San Agustín are the main festival of Fuente Álamo de Murcia, with wide participation from residents and peñas that welcome visitors during the second half of August. On the 28th, the patron saint's feast day, the image of Saint Augustine, the work of the sculptor José Sánchez Lozano, is carried in procession through the streets of the municipality. The programme also includes, since 2006, the Villa de Fuente Álamo National Folklore Festival, with folk groups and the participation of the Cuadrilla de Fuente Álamo.
Activity
Traditional celebration in which the people of Fuente Álamo gather for two or three days at El Cotico to eat and spend time together in the open air.
Monument
The church of Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Cuevas de Reyllo, a hamlet of Fuente Álamo de Murcia in the Campo de Cartagena, dates from the 17th century, not the 18th. It had as its precedent a first hermitage on the site, built in 1662, from which comes an anonymous baroque painting, La imposición de la casulla a San Ildefonso, donated in 1677 by Alonso Hernández de Santo Domingo, an army captain and councillor of Cartagena, and preserved today in the church of San Agustín in Fuente Álamo.
Monument
Church in the pedanía of Balsapintada, Fuente Álamo de Murcia, which keeps the style of the old 18th-century hermitages, with an ochre-toned façade.
Monument
Church in the pedanía of Las Palas, Fuente Álamo de Murcia, with a stuccoed façade and a stone base.
Activity
Patronal festivities of the hamlet of Balsapintada, in Fuente Álamo de Murcia, in the comarca of Campo de Cartagena, in honour of Santiago Apóstol. They are held during the week of 25 July and last ten days, with orchestras and musical groups every night and daytime activities for all ages: the election of the village's majas, a carriage display, truck-driving manoeuvres, sports and recreational championships and a vegetable contest. The organisation is in the hands of a Comisión de Fiestas of local volunteers, in a village whose church is dedicated to Santiago Apóstol and to the Immaculate Conception.
Activity
The Virgen del Rosario is the documented patron saint of Fuente Álamo de Murcia, so it is consistent that its hamlet of Cuevas de Reyllo celebrates festivities in her honor, although the municipal source does not specify the exact date at the hamlet level.
Monument
A Baroque church begun in the 16th century on an earlier hermitage of 1543, whose tower is known as the 'shepherds' tower' because it served as a landmark for transhumant shepherds.
Curiosity
Balsapintada, a pedanía of Fuente Álamo de Murcia bordering Cartagena, Torre Pacheco and Murcia, arose in the 17th century at the crossing of the vereda de Balsicas al Mingrano and the cordel de Fuente Álamo al Puerto de la Cadena (traditional livestock trails). It takes its name from an old water reservoir of Roman origin, reused by the Arabs and in medieval times, whose outer walls were painted red; known in the 19th century as “el descansadero” (the resting place), it ended up demolished, and its original foundations are preserved today beneath a glass floor. The land, flat and cut through by the ramblas de la Murta and del Albujón, was important in Roman times, as shown by the sites of the Balsa de Espín, with statuettes of Hermes, lead pipework and coinage from Augustus to Gallienus.
Nature
Cuevas de Reyllo is the main pedanía between Fuente Álamo and Alhama de Murcia, situated in the north-west of the municipality, on a plain of the Campo de Cartagena at 165 metres of altitude and about six kilometres from the foothills of the Sierra de Carrascoy. Its name comes from the Reyllo family, settled here since the 13th century: one of its members, Alonso Hernández Reyllo, took part in 1244 in the conquest of Lorca alongside the future Alfonso X, and received these lands in the subsequent division; another, Gregorio Reyllo Hernández, was the first mayor of Fuente Álamo de Murcia in 1700. In the 17th century, the nearby passage of the Camino Real towards Andalusia turned the place into an almost obligatory stop, with inns and other businesses. The climate is arid Mediterranean, with rain-fed crops of almond, vine and olive.
Curiosity
La Pinilla, a pedanía of Fuente Álamo de Murcia to the south-west of the municipality, at the foot of the sierra del Algarrobo, had 475 inhabitants in 2013 and its name may come from the Arabic “Ben-iella”; it appears documented in the 14th century as “Fuente de la Peniella” in the hunting books of Alfonso XI, and belonged to Lorca until its incorporation into Fuente Álamo in 1846. It preserves traces of Punic, Roman and Andalusi settlements, as well as Argaric and Palaeolithic sites; the Roman road between Carthago Nova and Eliocroca, present-day Lorca, passed through its vicinity, and next to it a tombstone with a Latin funerary inscription was found, now in the Museo de Fuente Álamo. Among its rain-fed fields stands out a centuries-old olive tree of around 500 years.
Curiosity
Las Palas is a pedanía of Fuente Álamo de Murcia, in the Campo de Cartagena, about 7 kilometres south-west of the town centre. The old Roman road linking Cartagena with Jaén passed through its area, with rural Roman buildings and a nearby settlement with Roman and Arab remains. In the 16th century a defensive tower was built beside the rambla de la Azohía against Barbary pirates. The 1787 Floridablanca census recorded 340 inhabitants, and in 1820, when Fuente Álamo became an independent municipality, Las Palas was incorporated into its territory after centuries divided between Cartagena and Lorca. It grew to more than a thousand inhabitants, with 1,284 in 2008; it lives from rain-fed agriculture and preserves the Church of St Peter the Apostle and the Mingrano and Viejo mills.
Historical milestone
After the steps begun in 1694 to buy their independence, the residents got Charles II to grant the title of villa to Fuente Álamo, but Philip V revoked the grace in 1702 and the place was again divided among three jurisdictions.
Historical milestone
The Liberal Triennium brought in 1820 the definitive raising of Fuente Álamo to town status with its own territory, in which were included the hamlets of Las Palas, Cánovas, Cuevas, Almagros, Los Paganes, El Estrecho and Los Campillos.
Food and drink
Flour porridge cooked with potato and cured sausage, worked in the pan until it thickens; it is a winter and working dish in the countryside of Fuente Álamo, where it is shared straight from the pan with a wooden spoon or with bread.
Food and drink
A preparation tied to the day of the pig slaughter: flour or stale bread cooked with pig's liver and belly pork and seasoned with spices, a thrifty recipe that in Fuente Álamo is accompanied by sweets such as the hornazo and the panecicos.