The guard

Laguardia (Guardia in Basque) is a Spanish municipality in the province of Álava, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. It is located 64 km from the capital, Vitoria, and is part of the Rioja Alavesa region.

It is located on a hillock, and is surrounded by a wall that King Sancho el Fuerte of Navarre ordered to be erected. Five access gates to the city are still preserved: Mercadal, Carnicerías, Páganos, San Juan and Santa Engracia. Its streets and corners retain a great medieval flavor. Its economy is based on the wine industry, with its own production and numerous wineries.

Its extensive heritage has allowed it to belong to the association The most beautiful towns in Spain, being the only town in the Basque Country in the association.

Place name

During the Middle Ages it received names such as Leguarda, Gardia, Guardia, Guoardia, Lagarde , Lagardia and Laguoardia, until it became fixed in the current Laguardia, the full name being "La Guardia de the Sonsierra Navarra".

There is some controversy about the Basque name of the town. At the end of the XIX century, the belief spread that before the granting of the village charter in 1164, the population of Laguardia had been called Biasteri. Many saw in Biasteri a place name of Basque origin and etymologies such as bi haitz herri ('town of the two rocks') became popular. This led to the use of Biasteri until recently as the Basque name for the town. However, in the last years of the XX century, philologists and historians reached the consensus conclusion that Biasteri i> had been the old name of the neighboring town of Viñaspre, not of Laguardia, and that therefore said association could not be made. Others defend that the original Basque name was Legarda. For this they are based on the fact that in medieval writings prior to 1164, the year in which the town received its fueros, between the limits of Logroño and Marañón there are the places of 'Legarda' and 'Legarde' respectively. The Royal Academy of the Basque Language considered that the correct name in Basque for the town is Guardia, but later the term Laguardia was established for both languages, including the term Biasteri continues to be in popular and institutional use as can be seen in official communiqués from the town hall, having been used traditionally.

Subdivisions

The municipality is formed by the union of three localities, which in turn are neighborhoods of the same, a council and several depopulated areas:

Places

• El Campillar: 7.5 km from the city centre, near the Ebro River. It has 29 inhabitants.
• Laserna: 11 km away. It is separated from the rest of the municipality by an Ebro River meander. It has 48 inhabitants.
• Laguardia, which is the capital of the municipality.

Council

• Get us

Depopulated

• Armentarana
• Berberana
• Stolen
• Quintana
• Reinavilla
• San Mederi

History

In the place called La Hoya there is an important protohistoric archaeological site. It is a pre-Roman settlement or population of the Berona culture whose substratum covers an extensive period of more than a thousand years, approximately from the XIIth century< /span> a. up to the II century B.C. C. The Berones was a people and culture of Celtic origin that spread throughout present-day Rioja, Rioja Alavesa and Treviño County. There is another important archaeological site of the Berones in the municipality of Laguardia, called "Santa Engracia" and that it would correspond to another important settlement of this pre-Roman town.

In the year 1164 the town received its fueros during the reign of the Navarrese king Sancho VI "El Sabio". The initial demarcation included from Las Conchas de Haro to Soto de Íñigo Galíndez, in the current municipality of Viana. It was the head of the community of "Villa y Tierra" until new towns were created in its surroundings, breaking up the territory in favor of San Vicente, Labraza and Viana. Even so, in medieval times it was the main square of the Sonsierra de Navarra.

Demographics

Population Chart 1900-2021

Graphic of demographic evolution of Laguardia between 1900 and 2021

Politics and Administration

Mayor after the 2015 elections: Pedro León García de Olano (PP).

Mayor after the 2019 elections: Lucio Castañeda Martínez de Treviño (EAJ/PNV).

Economy

Bodega Ysios.

The economy of Laguardia revolves around the world of viticulture (vine growing, wine industry and wine tourism). Laguardia is the capital of the Rioja Alavesa wine region. In Laguardia, as well as in the surrounding towns, wine is produced under the Rioja Qualified Denomination of Origin.

Monuments and places of interest

Abacial Tower.

Religious monuments

• Church of Santa Maria de los Reyes.It began to build in the centuryXII. In the centuryXIV the construction of the temple took place as we know it today, except for the main section of the ships and the header, which are the work of the centuryXVI. The main altarpiece, the work of Juan de Bascardo, is of the centuryXVII. The most outstanding piece of the church is the porch, which was washed at the end of the centuryXIV and was polychromed in the centuryXVII. It is one of the few polychrome porticos that are preserved in Spain. The carvings of the Arquivoltas represent the Apostles; in the mainel is represented the Virgin of the Kings, since that porch narrates the life of the Holy Virgin. The eardrum is divided into three parts, with historical reliefs. This portico closes with a chapel of the centuries XV-XVI which has allowed the preservation of the painting.

Church of Saint John.

• Church of Saint Johnwhich was initiated in Romanesque style and concluded in the Gothic. It has a chapel at the foot of the centuryXVIIIconsecrated to the Virgin of Pilar. This chapel is the successor of another previous chapel similar to that of the porch of Saint Mary, since there was also a porch of entrance to the church with the image of the Virgin in the mainel. The south cover is at the end of the centuryXIIfrom the beginnings of the Gothic. His tower-campanario was part of the wall as the main tower of defense of the southern part of the villa and later the swordsman was added.

• Chapel of Santa Maria de BerberanaRomanesque. It is the only church in all the Rioja Alavesa that has a square apse.

Portico de la Iglesia de Santa María de los Reyes.

• Convent of the Capuchins. It was built in the centuryXVII about the ancient Jewish quarter, in the lower part of the village. It counted with church and cloister around which the rooms of the convent were grouped. With Mendizábal's disamortization, the friars who lived there were expelled and the building went on to have several uses (carcel, schools, court). In the middle of the centuryXX. the building was destroyed to build the barracks of the Guardia Civil and the house of the doctor, respecting only the facade. At present, the facade remains standing, presiding over a square with a baroque staircase of access from Calle Mayor.

Civil monuments

• Muralla: The villa was fortified in the centuryXIII by order of King Navarre Sancho VII The Fort. That wall, of which only a few remains remain, had four doors of access; Páganos, Mercadal, San Juan and Santa Engracia. In the centuryXV a fifth door was opened, a new door or a butcher shop. The wall had a width of about two meters, covered with sillery stone and was crowned by a winged adarve. In the different wars of the centuryXIX the walls were very damaged and rebuilt on their original layout. Two of his towers remain transformed into bell towers.

• Plaza Mayor: porticada, center of the villa. In it are the old town hall and the new. The latter, built in the centuryXIX, shows on its façade the shield of the villa and a carillon clock with automatons that at 12, 14, 17 and 20 hours dance to the rhythm of a typical parade of the local parties.
• Old Town Hall of Renaissance style has on its main facade an imperial shield of Carlos V.
• Casa de la Primicia. It is the oldest civil building that stands in the village. In the church he charged the old tax of tithes and firstfruits.
• Home of Felix Maria Samaniego. Palace of the centuryXVII, home of Felix Maria Samaniego, houses dependencies of the Foral Council.
• Monument to Felix Maria Samaniego. End of the century QuioscoXIX oriental taste built in iron on a stone pedestal with corrido bench and access stairs to it. It is a unique piece in the Iron Architecture of the Basque Country. In the center is a bust of the fabulousist.

Prehistoric remains

• Poblado celtíbero de La Hoya an important pre-Roman archaeological site. The substrate covers an extensive period of more than a thousand years, from the Bronze Age—approximately the 12th century B.C.— to the end of the Iron Age—in the 2nd century B.C.—, being one of the most important population nuclei in the Celtibérica ethnic group of the Brons.

• Barbacan Celtibic Pond It is an artificial pond dating from the Iron Age (about 2,100 years ago) with a capacity to fulfill about 300,000 litres of water being the largest infrastructure of these characteristics and that time found in Europe. It is located in the southern part of the hill where the villa is settled and collects the water from a nearby spring. It was discovered in an archaeological intervention on that site in 1998 following the construction of an underground car park.

On a waterproof layer of the subsoil stands an irregular plant structure with masonry walls. Several extensions of the deposit have been identified. It has measures of 18 by 15 meters with a wall of closure with a height of between 0.85 and 3.10 meters with an area of 218 m2, of which 126 correspond to the lower vessel and 92 to the top.

Within the pond area, different infrastructures and objects have been found, among which is a Roman wreath dedicated to the Matres, of clear Celtic roots, which is associated with mineral-medical or thermal springs or aquifers.

• Dólmen within the municipal territory of Laguardia is part of the Monumental Complex of the dolmens of the lowlands of the Historical Territory of Álava that belong to the general period of the Neolithic, Calcolytic, Eneolithic and Bronze Age. They are megalithic structure with funeral functions. The bodies were placed on the surface of the compound with their respective rinsing. The dolmens are usually made up of three elements, the dolmenical or funeral chamber, where the body of the deceased, the entrance hall and the tumulus of land and stones covering the above elements were normally left. The camera and the hallway are usually formed by large stone slabs placed in vertical position, called orthotos, covered by other large horizontal slabs supported by them.

• Dolmen of El Sotillo: it is a megalithic group formed by a corridor and a tomb chamber of which 13 slabs have been preserved. The tomb chamber is oval plant of 3.30 meters by 2.90 meters and is made up of 9 slabs. The corridor, of 0.60 meters wide and 1.30 meters high, is defined by 5 large slabs and is facing south. It was excavated in 1963 by Domingo Fernández Medrano, José Miguel Barandiaran and Juan María Apellániz. Remains of 13 inhumations were found with their corresponding ajuars corresponding to different times as neolytic instruments of silex, a archer's bracelet, a metallic punch, arrowheads and campaniform ceramics of Calcolytic and vases with zig-zag decoration of the Bronze Age. The occupation of the infrastructure extends through three different epochs that include Calcolytic, the Bronze Age and one last inhumation during the Iron Age, 2740 years ago. The DNA of one of the remains dated in the Bronze Age has the haplogroup of the original Yamna village of the Caucasus. In the intervention that took place in 2013 was covered the floor of the camera and the corridor with cascajo and, in order to avoid its desalination outside the boundary of the corridor, a slab was added at the end of it, which led to the critique of that action by converting, de facto, the dolmen into one of "settled corner" which would lead to errors in future studies. It is located on the Laguardia border with Leza.

• Dolmen de San Martín: it is considered one of the most ancient buildings found in the world. It is a dolmen covered with flat slabs and funeral chamber. All this surrounded by a circular tumult of land and stones that has been damaged by agricultural exploitation. A special feature of this dolmen is the double use that has been given in two different times. The monument rose at the end of the Neolithic on a small hill that possessed a sacred character for the community. It suffered the fall of two of the slabs that formed the funeral chamber on the end of the Neolithic principles of Calcolytic and remained used until the end of the Calcolytic or early Bronze Age. On the dolmen, supported by the slabs of the dolmenic chamber, a hut or storage has been built, taking advantage of the stones of the tumulus itself.

Dolmen de San Martín

Its camera is polygonal shaped by 10 large sandstones with a dimensions of 5.75 meters by 3.10 meters and a maximum height of 1.90 meters. The corridor has a length of almost 5 meters and a width of 1,20 meters with a height of 1,30 meters. He was covered with slabs and kept one of them. The tumulus, very damaged by the surrounding farms, has a size of 26 by 14 meters and a height of 2.15 meters. It was covered with lighter limestone. There is a life-saving hut that has been built on the dolmen supported on the northwest of the camera.

It was located by José Miguel de Barandiaran and Domingo Fernández Medrano in April 1956 and excavated by them together with Juan María Apellániz between July and August 1964, in it several layers of stratification were detected that led to a great resonance within the Spanish archaeological area. Two drops were found in the chamber that provided two different occupation levels, one of them neolytic and the other of calcolytic times. The first level found remains of 21 individuals with their shawls composed of typical neolytic pieces and in the second they exhumed the rest of one individual and collected various remains already belonging to the Bronze Age. There were also three funeral trails made in sandstone that should have been lined with orientation from south to north and placed contiguously giving rise to the hypothesis that these three stellas presided the place where the inhumid individuals were deposited in the first stage of use of the dolmen.

After the excavation and study, a restoration of the monument was performed, which consisted of replacing the fallen slabs and the placement of mortars between the orthotos. The only dintel that kept its original location in the corridor was also subject.

• Dolmen de Layaza: located at the foot of the port of Herrera is a dolmen of chamber, corridor and tumulus in which the remains of two individuals have been found next to silex tools (lascas, a scraper, nuclei and laminillas), ceramic remains and asperón songs that served as a mill of hand, corresponding to their ajuares. The dolmenica chamber consists of 7 sandstones that make up an irregular polygonal plant of 3 meters by 1,80 meters. The corridor, facing southwest, has a width of 0.75 meters and a length of 2.60 meters, although incomplete it maintains clear its trace. The tumulus surrounding the set is oval shaped with measures of 26 by 16 meters.

The monument was discovered in 1952 by Domingo Fernández Medrano and excavated by José Miguel de Barandiaran and Juan María Apellániz in 1957. In 1988 the restoration of the monument was carried out.

• Dolmen de Los Llanos: it is a dolmen of camera, corridor and tumulus, the dolmenica chamber is formed by 6 orthotes of arenisca that define a polygonal area of 3 by 2.60 meters with a height of 1.62 meters that is accessed by a corridor of 1.03 meters in width of which 5 slabs of good size are preserved in their original position, the height of the corridor does not exceed 85 cm. The tumulus is made from good sized stones.

The monument remained in use for a period of about 1000 years. It began to be used in the Neolithic, about 5200 years ago, until the Calcolytic, 4000 years ago. In it they deposited over a hundred people with their respective ajuars. They have been found, arrow tips of sylex, rotten axes, beads of necklace, rock crystals and several spatula idols made in goats or sheep bone. From the final stage fragments of campaniform ceramics and some copper utensils have been recovered. The monument was located in 1982 by José Ignacio Vegas Aramburu and then excavated and studied by him between 1985 and 1987. It is located on the Laguardia border with Cripán.

• Dolmen del Alto de la Huesera: it is a big runner dolmen that is located on the top that gives its name. The dolmenica chamber is made up of 6 large sandstone ostrates that form a polygonal plant enclosure of 2.65 meters in diameter. The slabs have a small inclination that makes it seem that they tend to get together in the center. It is covered by a slab, which was left inside the chamber and placed in place in the restoration works that were carried out between July 2010 and April 2011. The corridor is eight meters long and preserves some slabs of the deck, A large tumulus surrounds em monument.

Dolmen del Alto de la Huesera

It was discovered in 1947 by Domingo Fernández de Medrano and excavated by himself the following year. Between 2010 and 2014 he excavated, studied and reconstructed. The excavation and study were commissioned by the direction of the Service of Museums and Archaeology of the Foral Deputation of Álava to the professors of the University of the Basque Country Javier Fernández Eraso and José Antonio Mujika Alustiza. It consists of a corridor; it is divided into two zones, one additive and another intratumular, and has a polygonal chamber formed by six orthotos and the cobertera. It has a ceremonial enclosure and has a unique anthropomorphic stalk in the Basque field, a human silhouette with engravings that represent a hand, engravings that support a barbed and, at the height of the shoulder, stand out two engraved stabs. He came to house up to a hundred and thirty-five bodies. Next to the monument there are two cave lizards of the centuryXIV. Remains of about 130 individuals and objects belonging to their shawls were found among the sylex tools, ceramic fragments, necklace beads and other beads of different materials. It is estimated that it was built during the final Neolithic period, about 5,500 years ago, and used for 2,000 years with special incidence in the Calcolytic period. After the fall of the slab that covered the funeral chamber, it continued to be used until the Bronze Age.

The restoration works were performed in two phases. The first, between July 2010 and April 2011, was carried out by Petra S. Coop. It stabilized the ortostats and reinforced to support the weight of the shed slab that was once again located in its original position, and bonds were made between ortostatos with mortars of lime and sand. The second, between 2014 and 2015, was commissioned to a construction company not specialized in restorations. This second phase of restoration has been criticized by the participants in the excavation and study of the monument, as they claim that their indications have not been met and that the actual dimensions of the monument could not be determined by not allowing them to finish the intervention in the tumulus. The indications were ignored in the replenishment and location of missing or retired elements in the study and the construction of the tumulus was altered, formed by imbricated stones, which was rebuilt by the mere binding of material surrounding the same with an encint of large stones.

Natural and ethnographic heritage

• Lagunas y embalse de El Prao: protected biotope. It encompasses the three endorreic lagoons of Carralogroño Carravalseca and Musco, and the reservoir Prao de la Paul created on an old encharcada area.

• Ground gas: the subsoil of the medieval village is timed by numerous caves used as wineries.

• Bodegas: Outside the walled enclosure are other wineries, including the Bodegas Ysios, with a building of the architect Santiago Calatrava and Bodegas Campillo, the first winery of Laguardia that is built with an architectural project. Several of the wineries admit tourist visits.

Music

The town of Laguardia has been known for having among its inhabitants musicians of great talent in all its aspects. In this way, several generations of bagpipers have given rise to the celebration of the Day of the Bagpiper, one of its most important festivals, which is celebrated in homage to illustrious bagpipers from this town and its surroundings. They are also an important part of musical history of the town its brass bands and its municipal band, which has been active since 1881.^{[citation required]}

Sports

The town has a regional division soccer team. A previous formation competed in the Regional League of La Rioja.

In 1967, the sixteenth stage of the Cycling Tour of Spain began in Laguardia, a time trial that ended in Vitoria. The winner was the Frenchman Raymond Poulidor.

Since 2012, a popular race has been held organized by the "Los Zaborricos" rock.

Twinned cities

Laguardia maintains a twinning relationship with the city of Vayres in France.

Notable people