Valdemorillo de la Sierra

A village of woodland and livestock

Valdemorillo de la Sierra lies in Serranía Baja (lower Serranía), among pine-covered and scrub-covered hills, with traditional farmland. Its municipality, about 70 km², lies within the Valle del Cabriel Biosphere Reserve. People lived from woodland and livestock. The rubble-stone houses have pitched roofs for the mountain climate, and the church is the village centre. Until 1916 it was called simply Valdemorillo.

No free time

Pedro Villar López, a teacher born in the village, has written its history and a book on its speech, and in Revista Moya described how Valdemorillo amused itself until the mid-20th century. In fact there was scarcely free time: when weather prevented fieldwork, people repaired implements, split firewood or mended stables and hay barns. Every house had livestock, so men returned late and wanted to sit beside the fire; many went to the tavern, called the Casino by older people, only during the San Roque festivities. Brisca and tute card games were played there, while women gathered in a house to play cinquillo.

Strength dominated the festivities: iron-bar throwing, prepalo, reja, stick pulling, «arráncate cepas» (uproot the stumps), skittles and hand pelota against a house wall on the square. When someone won a public auction they treated others to the alboroque, a celebratory meal, and the main dish was jilimoje, a salad of crushed raw tomato with tinned tuna or sardines, onion, hard-boiled egg and olives. Until the 1960s travelling performers came with trained animals, asking at the end for the «plato de la esperanza» (plate of hope), and from the 1930s travelling cinema arrived: a white sheet in the dance hall, everyone bringing a chair from home, for two or three nights running.

At Carnival the priest and village officer went out collecting for the souls of the dead, with a small bell, and a meal for everyone was made from what they gathered; people in costume went about with flour and smoke. The story is told in Carnival of souls and St John’s Night.

People from Valdemorillo are called coruchos, and no one quite knows why. Two explanations circulate in the village: one concerns a bird fitted with a little hood, another a procession caught in rain whose villagers covered themselves with hoods. Neither has a date or documents; they are versions people tell.

Plan your visit

A village to explore at an unhurried pace, on a day through Serranía Baja.

Before you travel

Ask the town hall what can be visited.

Combine with

La Cierva, with Las Hoyas, is 6.3 km away in a straight line, and Valdemoro-Sierra 7 km.