Fuentelespino de Moya

A village of Moya’s lands

Fuentelespino de Moya lies in the Serranía Baja, in the old Land of Moya, as its name says, within the Valle del Cabriel Biosphere Reserve. It is a village of cold plateau.

What trades and memory tell

Within the municipality is El Toril, a small fortified Later Iron Age settlement with a walled enclosure of about 1,500 m². Two parallel ditches close the easiest side to attack, the first cut in rock, between 3 and 6 metres wide. There are also Bronze Age and Islamic remains. It is known from surface evidence and has not been excavated.

The tower of three stonemasons

The church tower was begun on 1 April 1892 with a budget of 70,000 reales and 1,000 pesetas in hand, collected by the 180 households. It took four years to finish. The first stonemason, Manuel Boch, who had built Casas Altas’ tower, raised it to the church eaves and died suddenly in Narboneta. The second, Vicente Villaplana from Landete, raised it to the last cornice and died of pneumonia, almost suddenly, in Landete. The third, Dionisio Villanueva from Henarejos, put on the roof and died shortly after finishing it. Stone came from municipal quarries such as Los Barrancos or La Porteruela; lime from kilns such as Corral del Moreno; timber from the village pine forests.

At the end priest and mayor clashed over the top: the mayor wanted a worthy spire; the priest wanted to finish quickly because villagers were tired of compulsory unpaid work on it. He had the scaffolding dismantled on his own authority and its wood lit celebration bonfires. The tower was left with a pyramidal zinc top that does not quite fit the stone and was inaugurated on 14 September 1896, during the Santísimo Cristo del Amparo festivities.

Ánimas and Holy Innocents

Until the Civil War the village had three brotherhoods: the Santísimo, holding a procession inside the church every third Sunday of the month; the Third Order of St Francis; and the Benditas Ánimas, souls in purgatory, collecting door to door, holding a public auction in the square and a novena for the dead around All Saints’ Day. War swept them away. Early this century the village revived its oldest, most distinctive tradition, the Santos Inocentes, Holy Innocents festival, with its animeros, collectors for the souls, wearing pointed hoods, and in 2024 some still collected for the souls in purgatory. A legend places an enchanted princess in Fuente de los Villares, like the one at Salvacañete. Some still work with willow: baskets for saffron flowers, mushroom gathering or distributing blessed bread at charitable feasts for Santa Quiteria, San Bernabé, San Antonio or San Roque, and two villagers have assembled old-tool collections, one in old straw barns at La Erilla.

The shepherds’ Virgin

According to tradition, the Virgen de la Fuen María appeared in a cave to two shepherds from Fuentelespino. Hence the two villages share the Whit Monday pilgrimage: the image leaves the church of Landete, and at the sanctuary’s entrance arch Fuentelespino villagers receive it to carry it up.

Plan your visit

The village takes a short time to see.

Before you travel

El Toril is in the hills without prepared access: do not touch anything.

Combine with

Henarejos, with its rock paintings, is 6.3 km away as the crow flies, and Landete about 9.