Industrial heritage: power stations, mines and saltworks of the Serranía de Cuenca

Water, metal and salt

The largest work is the Salto de Villalba: a hydroelectric station of 1926 that supplied Madrid with electricity using water from La Toba reservoir, a channel of almost twenty kilometres through Laguna de Uña and a workers’ settlement that emptied with automation. Its history, told by those who lived there: El Salto de Villalba. Further up, the arch dam of La Tosca holds back the Cuervo for the same purpose.

The mines go back a long way. Cueva del Hierro was worked from Roman times until the 20th century. In the Serranía Baja (lower Serranía), the Cerro de las Minas in Talayuelas has copper claims from 1566 and 1586 and the Pozo Vulcano of 1841, and the Santa Filomena mine in Garaballa extracted grey copper for a Cuenca company from 1848. Salt gives Salinas del Manzano its name and is remembered in the Valsalobre saltworks.

Mills and factories

Water drove flour mills, trip hammers and fulling mills: the Molino del Batán in Huerta del Marquesado, the Boniches mills or the Molino de la Luz, which supplied the village with electricity in 1915. Cardenete turned its flour factory into a museum.

Millstones survive in the mills of Tragacete: three French stones outside the Chorrera mill, and in the Molino de Abajo a Catalan stone made from a single piece of conglomerate. A village family looked after the Herrería power station in Vega del Codorno for three years and the Chorrera mill’s station for one.

Good conduct

Many workings are unprotected mine entrances or slag heaps: view them without entering or disturbing anything.