La Corchuela

La Corchuela (37°14′8″N 5°58′33″W / 37.23556, -5.97583) is a peri-urban park of Andalusia created around a centuries-old pine forest and occupying 85 hectares of the municipalities of Dos Hermanas and Los Palacios and Villafranca, in the province of Seville (Spain), conditioned by ICONA for the enjoyment of the metropolitan area of Seville capital. Access to the park is via the highway from Dos Hermanas to Isla Menor, in the vicinity of the Carretera de la Isla Industrial Park and along the El Monte Highway, from Los Palacios and Villafranca.

In addition to the pine forest that constitutes the core of the park, there are also areas occupied by holm oaks, cantuesos, mastic trees, cistus and various scrubland, vegetation characteristic of the ecosystems of the Bajo Guadalquivir and the Mediterranean environment.

It was declared a peri-urban park by the Junta de Andalucía on February 22, 1998, protecting an area of 84.79 hectares.

History

The land belonged to the Cortijo de la Corchuela, from which the shopping plaza remains.

After the Spanish civil war, between 1940 and 1962 there was a forced labor camp in La Corchuela for republican political prisoners (officially called Militarized Penitentiary Colonies), which under the program called Redemption of Penalties for Work built the 158 km of the Bajo Guadalquivir irrigation canal, popularly known, and currently officially recognized, at least for official road signs, as the Canal de los Presos b>. The relatives of many of these prisoners from all over Spain created the nearby towns of Bellavista and Fuente del Rey, and many of them stayed there once the La Corchuela camp closed.

Other similar work camps existed in Los Merinales and El Arenoso and relatives also created the towns of Torreblanca and Valdezorras in Seville; Quintillo in Two Sisters; and El Palmar de Troya in Utrera. The documentary film Presos del Silencio, by directors Mariano Agudo and Eduardo Montero, deals with this part of history, with many references to La Corchuela.

Between 1969 and 1977, part of the La Corchuela estate was used as a shelter to house Sevillian families evicted from their homes due to their dilapidated state. Also at the beginning of the 1960s, after the serious floods that Seville suffered, the barracks that had housed the prisoners in the Los Merinales work camp were used for the same purpose.