Matthew Clapham
Aug 11, 2024

The date of construction listed in the local Spanish Land Registries can be very unreliable. I noticed when looking for houses in the town where I now live that every property in the old town around the church and town hall was listed as 'built in 1900'. There is no way they built dozens of houses in a single year - it must be that the original records were lost/destroyed, and they just marked everything as being built in the year the new records were drawn up. A date just before the Civil War suggests that maybe the Registry books were destroyed, and everything known to have been built before the outbreak of war was simply marked '1935'.

That would be one possible explanation for the discrepancy.

Fascinating piece of history and memoir, Lisi!

Matthew Clapham
Matthew Clapham

Written by Matthew Clapham

Professional translator by day. Writer of silly and serious stuff by night. Also by day, when I get fed up of tedious translations. Founder of Iberospherical.

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