Orchova valley

A rento on the border

Orchova is a valley in Santa Cruz de Moya, adjoining the lands of Aragón and Valencia, once a rento, an isolated farmstead in the hills: several groups of houses with their land and mill, once inhabited and now empty. A retired teacher from the neighbouring hamlet of Las Rinconadas has told its story, drawing on the little written record and what is remembered.

That small written record is old. The book Moya, tierras de frontera recounts that in the 14th century, in early August, the mayor of Ademuz, ignoring the peace between Castilla and Aragón, entered the rento of Orchova through Santa Cruz with armed men and took woollen and linen cloth and all the livestock. Moya’s people complained to Pedro IV of Aragón, who gave the mayor ten days to return it.

The rento that emptied

Orchova consisted of groups of scattered houses along the River Arcos, with a mill: around seventeen households, meaning around seventeen houses. For a couple of years it had its own school for eight or ten children, and those from the furthest houses gathered to walk down together. People who lived there as children remember the days of November 1949, when the Guardia Civil was preparing to storm the guerrilla camp at Cerro Moreno: orders to leave the houses, a father told to sleep in Las Rinconadas, and horses and guards climbing from every direction. According to Vestal Etnografía’s research, the rento lost its population then; in 2023 there were still cultivated plots in the valley.

Plan your visit

Before you travel

The houses are ruins on private property: view them from the path.

Combine with

The Mojón Triginio and the Guerrilla Interpretation Centre.