Jim Lawley

Can Spain save its dying villages?

The town of Zahara de la Sierra celebrating the festival of Corpus Christi (Getty)

In a little village on the Spanish Meseta, I once asked an old lady about the next village some three or four miles away. She shook her head as if considering a hopeless case and said, ‘Oh, the people there are very different.’ To me, those villages seemed like two peas in a pod. But to her, they were worlds apart.

Spaniards often refer to their home town or village as their patria chica: the little fatherland. ‘Every village, every town,’ wrote Gerald Brenan in The Spanish Labyrinth, ‘is the centre of an intense social and political life. As in classical times, a man’s allegiance is first of all to his native place, or to his family or social group in it, and only secondly to his country and government.’

But over the last 70 years, as more and more people have had to seek work in the big cities, a predominantly rural country has become mainly urban, leaving an empty Spain in which just 15 per cent of the population lives in half the national territory. Today some villages have fewer than ten inhabitants; many face extinction.

Some villages have promised employment and a house for 50 euros a month

In an attempt to attract people back to the countryside, some villages have promised employment and a house for 50 euros a month. Recently picturesque Tremor de Arriba, nestled against the mountainside in north-western Spain, offered dozens of three-bedroomed flats for sale at a mere 3,835 euros each.

But such ad hoc measures cannot compensate for decades of neglect. While the politicians like to boast about the high-speed trains which now race between big cities at nearly 200 miles per hour, the traditional rail services on which villages and small towns have always depended have been cut.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in