Valley of Zalabí…
The municipality of the Valle of Zalabí, formed by the centers of population of: Charches (57,9 Km2), Alcudia (36,4 Km2) and Esfiliana (13,9 Km2), which merge in 1.974 in the present Valle of Zalabi, whose administrative capital is Alcudia, being Charches the only center of population placed inside of the Natural Park of Sierra de Baza.
History of the town of Alcudia de Guadix
The history of the village of Alcudia de Guadix goes back to the indigenous primitive population settled in the Zalabí, at least since the Argaric period, but its more recent origin goes back to the VIII Century, when in the immediate meadow the Syrian Yunds settled with the caliph Walid. From the X-XI Centuries a new population settled. Between the Muslims it was known as Alcudia Alhambra (Alcudia the Red), because of the reddish color of the hillsides on which it was settled.
In 1489 it was conquered by the Catholic Kings and became part of the Crown of Castile. In the XVI Century, Alcudia was already an important village due to the agricultural richness and because all of its houses has water and many common properties. Its baths were also famous, in which were celebrated night ceremonies, especially during marriages.
Hernando el Havaqui, the “Great Bailiff” was from Alcudia, who participated in the uprising of the Moorish against Felipe II and was captain of the region of Guadix, Baza and Marquesado del Zenete, during the rebellion of the Alpujarras
History of Exfiliana
Exfiliana is the Roman Ex-Julia ("out of Guadix"), founded by the first Christians arrived to Acci around the year 306 AC. It changes its name to Tustar or Xustar with the arrival of the Muslims, and in the 16th Century was again Yxfilyana. After the Moorish rebellion, in 1568, it turned uninhabited due to the expulsion of its 25 inhabitants, resettled after with some old Christians. In 1269, the mystic poet Al Xustari was born in Exfiliana and in 1708 the sculptor Torcuato Ruiz del Peral was born.
Yxfilyana, annex of the parish of Zigüení in 1554, was expelled as place the 23rd day of October of 1571, by the expulsion of the Moorish. Its 25 inhabitants, also Moorish, were expelled from Exfiliana, resettled by 10 old Christians. The 6th of May, 1708, in the Smart Neighborhood of the town, the distinguished baroque sculptor Torcuato Ruiz del Peral was born.
In 1750, in the land registry of Ensenada, it was described as town which has 80 houses and 5 flour mills. The inhabitants of the village lived from the cultivation vegetable gardens, vineyards, poplar groves, whitebeam trees, mulberries and other fruit trees, chestnut trees and some olive trees, as well as the from the production of silk. In the register of the land registry of 1842, there appears a census of 90 inhabitants and 408 souls, even though these data were corrected by Javier Gallego Roca in his “Urban morphology of the Kingdom of Granada”, page 178, indicating that the then inhabitants were 132, and 429 were the souls dwelled around there at that time. Madoz, in his dictionary (1845 - 1850) places the City in Southern Granada, in one left shore of the river Guadix, reporting on its mild climate with East and West winds. Describes the existence of 80 houses, including the town hall and the prison, the kids primary education school, a parochial church of the Annunciation served by a priest and a chaplain, and outside the town, in the Zalabí, a Chapel of Saint Mary of the Head.
Places of interest in Alcudia and Exfiliana:
Church of Alcudia
Church of Exfiliana
Its chapels (Chapel of the Zalabi, Chapel of Sainy Buenaventura, Chapel of the Souls, Chapel of Saint Antón)
Tejea of Zalabi and Tejea of Majuelo
Caves of the Nazari period (the spectacles)
Ruiz del Peral (Sculptor) Exposition
Places of landscape interest:
Viewpoint of Saint Gregorio
Viewpoint of S. Buenaventura
Viewpoint if the Souls
Viewpoint of the Pine forest
History of Charches
Its origin is not very clear, being the most accepted opinion the one that establishes that is was formed around the 16th Century, as a shepherd’s settlement of the village of La Calahorra. People says in that respect that there were twelve families settled in Charches, which coming from La Calahorra, divided in twelve equal parts the land and its goods, forming the named twelve sorts that gave rise to the existing irrigation system of the land, by turns, corresponding to each sort a twenty four-hour water turn.
In the Madoz Dictionary (1846), it is said that together with El Raposo and Rambla del Agua, it formed its own town council.
Among its monuments we must highlight the parochial church, open to the cult in honor of S. Marcos, the fountain of the Seven Spouts, with its traditional clothe washing place, remodeled in May 2004 and the popular threshing floors, with a very singular popular architecture and worth to preserve, in which paving were used autochthonous materials from the Sierra de Baza. Its streets preserve the appearance of its mountain origin and are beautifully narrow, being well preserved the group of buildings, which are worth an escape and a walk.
Charches is located in the South side of the Sierra de Baza, offering views to the Valley of Marquesado and Sierra Nevada and with an altitude of 1.426 m., being, therefore, one of the highest villages of the Iberian Peninsula.
Small village of La Rambla del Agua
La Rambla del Agua is placed in the South side of the Natural Park of the Sierra de Baza, offering views to Sierra Nevada, of which it is separated by the depression of the Marquesado, with an altitude of 1.430 meters, it is a beautiful small village of the Sierra de Baza, which geologically is placed inside the geologic sector named Nevado-Filábride, formed by metamorphic rocks from the Paleozoic Age, basically mica schist, quartzite, marbles and some hard rocks, which make this place a very singular spot, with typical Alpujarra’s constructions, from which we must highlight its Mozarabic-Rural style Church.
This small village belongs nowadays to the municipal area of the Valley of Zalabí, even if has not always been this way, since originally and around the 15th Century, date of its historic origin, there were country houses of shepherds that belong to the village of Aldeire, first, and Dólar afterwards and later, in 1853, becomes part of Charches and other country houses to become its own Town Council.
La Rambla del Agua that at the end of the 19th Century and beginnings of the 20th, period of highest zenith, counted with almost 500 inhabitants, started its depopulation in the fifties of the past Century, but it was in the 60’s when if suffered a massive depopulation, being the village completely abandoned.
Nowadays, the small village of La Rambla del Agua has been comprehensively recovered by its inhabitants, with the progressive return of its emigrants, which has permitted the return of life and color to this mountain village, so now the small village is dwelled during the whole year and it’s mainly populated by retired persons that depend on their retirement pension and who have come back to their place of origin from where they worked, while attending some rural tourism activities, they spend their time with traditional activities such as esparto craftsmanship, domestic pork slaughter or the cultivation and harvest of almonds, vegetable garden products and wine produces and elaborated for domestic use.
The main interest center of the small village is the Ethnologic Museum of La Rambla del Agua, in which you can see all the ways of life of La Rambla de Agua and other centers of populations of the Sierra de Baza, in addition to utensils, clothes, different working implements, photos, etc., as singular samples of the mountain culture; the visit to this museum must be arranged by phone calling the number (+34) 958 66 12 17.
Places of interest of Çharches and La Rambla del Agua:
Church of Charches
Church of La Rambla del Agua
Ethnologic Museum of La Rambla del Agua
Threshing floor of Charches and La Rambla
Mines of Las Piletas
Mines of Los Cuellos
La Fraguara
