La Alameda, Green Monument

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La Alameda, Green Monument

INTRODUCTION

Santiago de Compostela has numerous parks and gardens, but none are as integrated with the history of the city and its people as La Alameda.

La Alameda is located to the west of the urban center, of the historic Santiago surrounded by defensive walls, now lost, which current tourists do not stop visiting.

Its origin dates back to the donation of the land to the city by the Count of Altamira, in the mid-16th century. Since then, this space can be identified in the old representations of the city, such as the well-known panoramic view of Pier Maria Baldi, included in the work entitled ‘Voyage de Cosme de Medicis through Spain and Portugal’, from the mid-seventeenth century, then still outside from the walled cordon of Santiago.

The first interventions to tree the space date back to the late 18th century, when the oaks surrounding the Chapel of Santa Susana were planted in rows. From that moment on, partial planning and urbanization interventions in the area take place. In the 1830s, the landscaping work began, through the construction of a public walk aligned with the Camino Real, the current Avenida de Juan Carlos I. That walk is what we now know as La Alameda and Campo de la Estrella.

The closure between the two ends of La Alameda, through a horseshoe-shaped walk around the Santa Susana oak grove, dates from the late 19th century.

The pacego garden qualification was given to it for its role as a recreation and recreation area for the city, in the same way that the gardens of Galician pazos are spaces for pleasure and enjoyment.

There have been numerous interventions of greater or lesser importance since the space as we know it now was configured, including the most recent (2006-2008), promoted by the Santiago City Council and funded by the Santiago de Compostela Consortium.

The complex is rich in historical monuments and various elements of artistic interest (Link to the monuments page ). In the gardens of La Alameda numerous local or larger festivals are held. Of particular interest are the festivities of La Ascensión, an outstanding religious festival, with a variable date, 40 days after Easter; likewise the ‘Fiestas del Apóstol Santiago’, patron of the city, the Autonomous Community of Galicia and Spain (July 25). Apart from these festivals, numerous cultural and popular events are held; Book Fair, photographic exhibitions, children’s theater performances, concerts of the municipal music band, etc.

Over time, La Alameda and its attached gardens have been enriched with a unique ornamental flora, with a total of ninety species multiplied by more than fifteen hundred arboreal and shrubby individuals, some of them notable for their age or size or incorporated to popular traditions. (Link to singular trees page ).

THREE GARDENS IN ONE

What we call La Alameda, for simplicity, is made up of three different gardens, which the people of Compostela call La Alameda, La Herradura and La Robleda de Santa Susana. The three make up a common space of more than 8 hectares, but they have different birth dates and respond to different models, with different uses and functions.

The gardens have designs very much in the taste of bygone eras, with geometric flowerbeds, dominated by straight lines; The exception is La Robleda de Santa Susana, which coincides with a landscape model, although it was not conceived under those principles of gardening.

Each of these gardens has a particular design, with monuments, structures and flora that distinguishes it from the others.

La Robleda de Santa Susana

La Robleda is the oldest garden area of ​​all, dominated by oak (carballo, in Galician) (Quercus robur), although there is some other tree species (Link to Map of La Robleda ). The space of La Robleda de Santa Susana was a local market place already in the Middle Ages and there are many photos and pictorial representations of that activity during the 19th and 20th centuries. This activity ended with the socio-economic changes and the old commercial model; The transfer of the cattle market to the National Market of Salgueiriños, to the north of the city, at the beginning of the 1970s contributed to its end.

In the Robleda de Santa Susana the Chapel of Santa Susana, the monument to Daniel Rodríguez Castelao (Link to monuments ) and some large oaks, with a maximum of two hundred years or a little more, to judge by the planting time, stand out. (Link to singular trees ).

The Alameda

The Alameda is formed by the landscaped space that is born in front of the Porta Faxeira, in memory of the one that was there in the medieval wall, with alignments of trees of different species, which reach the fountain and stairway at the west end (Link to Map of La Alameda ).

The first part, with rows of plane trees and camellias, receives the particular name of Campo de la Estrella, from Jacobean references. In this space, a specimen of sequoia stands out, which already stands out among the trees in a photograph from the end of the 19th century, and a magnolia planted by the Society of Friends of the Country (Link to unique trees ). There are also some commemorative copies of various events and from donations, with their corresponding explanatory plates. On one edge of the central street they remain ‘Las Marías’, in their eternal walk at two in the afternoon (Link to monuments )

The innermost part of La Alameda is made up of different lines of trees. The center is formed by a double alignment in which silver linden trees and camellias alternate. To your right there is another line of privets from Japan and, already in contact with the oak, a walk with different species (poplars, acacias, plane trees). On the opposite side there is a row of fir trees and, beyond, an area with small ponds.

The walks between the tree-lined rows of La Alameda were ordered in his time, by way of custom, in a discrimination of social classes. The walk on the right was reserved for the popular classes, the one in the center for the nobility and lordship and the one on the left for clergymen, teachers and professions with studies.

The monument to Casto Méndez Núñez, the music temple and the church of El Pilar stand out here (Link to monuments ). In addition, the central promenade has two rows of granite benches and wrought iron backs, with plant and animal motifs, which come from the old Sargadelos foundry, prior to the current ceramic factory. At the end of winter the Soulange magnolia specimens are splendid and a magnificent silver linden, a promenade banana, the virginia tulip tree, etc. are of interest. (Link to singular trees ).

Horseshoe

This garden is named for its shape and serves as a link between the two ends of La Alameda (Link to Map of La Herradura ). The northern section is known as Paseo de Los Leones, due to the two double columns, closed by an arch and topped by two lion figures. The west front of the space is configured by three parallel walks, the innermost Bóveda walk, next to the oak grove, the middle of Las Letras Gallegas walk, due to the existence of the monument to Rosalía de Castro, and La Herradura walk, in the direction concrete, the outermost, already adjacent to the slope that leads to the university campus.

It is a space rich in monuments, fountains and ponds, especially the western part. Here are concentrated the sculptural ensembles dedicated to Rosalía de Castro and Pedro Pais Lapido, the representation of the popular milkmaid, the magnificent stairs that go down to the university campus and those that go up to the church of Santa Susana. We must also add the monument to Manuel Ventura Figueroa and the old Cruceiro do Gaio, dated 1679 (Link to monuments ).

In La Herradura there are some worthy arboreal specimens, among them ‘La Perona’, linked to Eva Duarte de Perón’s visit to Santiago, some Lawson cypresses, Caucasian firs, cedars, magnificent eucalyptus trees, etc. (Link to singular trees ). In addition, some linear tree formations are noteworthy: two rows of magnificent Canarian palm trees, one of horse chestnut trees and, above all, the oak walk that surrounds the Santa Susana forest.