Salinas

The medieval cities of Imón de Jadraque in the province of Guadalajara, lie some 150 km NE of Madrid near the main road from the capital to Barcelona and already attract large numbers of tourists. The salinas employed sunlight to produce salt by evaporating brine from natural springs. Each of the salinas is about 22 ha in extent. Improvements in transport in the 1950s facilitated the sale in inland Spain of salt from works on the coast, and the works at Imon and La Olmeda fell into decline, although, fortunately most of the ancient structures remain. Amongst those that survive are the warehouse of San Antonio, whose roof is supported on pine pillars 15 m high, several waterwheels that once drove pumps, and a ‘Noria’ house, a building with a conical roof housing horse-operated pumping apparatus, which is of seventeenth century date, but of a design influenced by Arab practices of several centuries earlier.