The serrano cortijo, a combination between the practical and the simple
The Valley of Los Anchos, from which this route is part, is perhaps the area where what is left of the popular architecture of these mountains is best preserved. Joaquín Gómez Mena, an excellent connoisseur of the Natural Park, sums up its main features.
The serrana house, as a general rule, is rectangular and has thick walls ranging from 50 to 70 centimeters, made of stones and toves attached with argamase, which serves as protection against summer heat and the cold of winter. The surface of this rectangle ranges from 25-35 meters wide by 30-40 meters long.
On the lower floor there are usually three rooms that are aligned. The first is a kitchen-dining room, where there is the access door to the house and it has one or two windows not very large. In this kitchen-dining room is the home or fireplace, which has the double function of heating the room in winter and serving to cook the food and heat the water.
In most of the houses, on both sides of the fireplace are two fitted cupboards on the wall, where the cooking tools are kept. Sometimes in one of these holes the quarries were placed with the water that was brought from the source.
The other two rooms are single bedrooms, one for marriage and one for children. They have small ventilation windows and are very austere, for in them there is only one bed and a harpoon to keep the clothes. From one of the bedrooms leaves the staircase that gives access to the upper floor, where the camera is located.
The roof of this plant is of descending height, or as we say today, overstretched, because the roof becomes inclined, usually to a water, to run the rainwater. This camera has one or two small windows to air the stay, where the products of the killing are cured and stored. The roof of the camera is unglued, with the wooden rolls that make of beams and the wooden boards placed above them. Finally, a clay layer and tiles are available on the boards.
Next to the human stays, but separated by a wall and with independent entrances, the blocks for the cattle are located, which have freckles for mules and donkeys. In some corijos these blocks are separated from the house, in front of it or on one side of it. Other buildings of the cortijo separated from the family house are the corrals and aprines for the goats and sheep, the cochineas and the hens.
There are also other common-use infrastructure for different families in a corijada. Among them are the ages to pull the grain, which are usually on high and well ventilated grounds to take advantage of the effect of the air, are almost always circular and its soil is made with rolling edges, perfectly placed as if of a mosaic. Many of these ages are currently abandoned and it is regrettable that they end up being lost in the near future, because they are part of the cultural heritage of the natural park.
Another element of common use is the bread oven, built of stone and mud and in a vaulted form. It can be found standing out of the walls of the house to which it is located or, more often, as an independent construction among other buildings of the cortijo. The plant of these furnaces is usually circular or square, and is covered with Arab tile.
Also the fountains and lavatories, which were essential elements in the daily life of the village, are another heritage that in many places is being lost and that, even if the installation of running water in the houses makes them barely used, should be kept perfectly preserved.
