Viñón and Veneros
Viñón is a largely-abandoned village on the through-road through Cabranes. It was till the 1960s a mining village, reportedly owned by the Marqués de Villaviciosa who closed it when the mines became uneconomic and who does not now attempt to conserve it.
What can be seen in the photo are, front centre, the church bell-tower; beside it high to its right is the cemetery; and further above it to the left, Veneros, which is a large house and stables. Famously, in the birth-throes of the Civil War the family from Veneros murdered the priest from Viñón, though the reasons are in dispute. This mining country contained people fiercely opposed to Franco while the Church in Spain supported Franco; so in Villaviciosa reportedly there were priests who carried arms - "los curas con pistolas" - which they said were needed for self-defence. This may be relevant to what happened in Viñón.
I tried to google "curas con pistolas" in search of further information and all I could find was photos of priests with water-pistols carrying out socially-distanced christenings in the age of Covid.
One more snippet. The name "Viñón" relates to "large vine", and is apparently the result of medieval monks´ (the church is from the 9th century) attempts to establish a wine industry in the valley. The adjoining village is called "Vegapallía", an odd-sounding name. A "vega" is a piece of high-quality alluvial agricultural land, "pallía" is said to derive from "fallida", meaning failed, because the vega failed to support the needs of the attempted viticulture.
The extra shows a detail of the pithead in Vegapallía, with a railway trolley; both these have been repaired and improved in memory of the industry.
The coal from Viñón used to be taken, originally by ox-cart but later by lorries, to El Puntal, some 15 km away, which I showed here on March 12th, for transport by sea to Gijón or further afield.
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