This town... ah, ah, is looking like.....

 We are heading, mostly north west, but first we are going to the ghost village of El Torbiscal.


In the 1940s it was decided to develop the area and in the next decade the architect Antonio Delgado Roig. Delgado Roig was born in  Seville in 1902. Apart from architecture he was a bit keen on Sevillian regionalism - although the Civil War put that to an end. El Torbiscal was a model community, designed at the heart of a thousand hectares of dryland and 1600 hectares of irrigated lands. 



The village was designed for 200 permanent employees, with space for 200 more as needed. The village had a school, medical service, company store, swimming pool and centres of entertainment.   At its height wheat, barely, corn, sugar beets and cotton were grown, along with beef and dairy cattle.


The rise of the village was matched with its dramatic fall. In 2000 120 people lived there. A year later forty had left.  In the next ten years a further 66 left, leaving only 14 in 2011.  The move to the cities left this ghost town to the twin attentions of the Army, was urban warfare training, and youtubers wanting to make spooky vids. https://listaroja.hispanianostra.org/ficha/el-torbiscal/ 


On we go - along the N4 - and passed the crumbling walls of the Castillo de Diego Corrientes.  Miguel summed it up thusly ‘The Alcantarilla fortress and bridge are located at the confluence of the old Salado stream and the Cañada Real de las Cabezas de San Juan, and at the crossing of the Cañada Real de la Armada to the north. Two towers were built at the entrance and exit of the bridge to control passage, but only one remains: the Alcantarilla fortress.’

Canchamar was less kind.  ‘Completely abandoned, a fat chunk of rock in the middle of the road’

Well, we’ve mentioned sugar beets so let's look at them.  The beet industry developed in the 19th century.  France is one of the largest producers of the stuff, 35 million tons in 2009. The USA is next, then Germany.  Spain does not compare but grew  2.89 million tons - chiefly in Castilla y Leon.




We are five days from Sevilla.








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