La cabaña

So this is the one, in the comarca Miera, near Hoyo Castrejon: La Cabaña, a typical Cabaña Pasiega, date of construction unknown (the living owners claim their grandparents lived in it too) .

Dimensions: 10 x 7 meters, 7 meters high, in two stories. Made of 3ft thick karst stone walls with dark stone slab shingles, fastened by gravity.

The inner structure of the second story and roof is of wood. The lot comes with 5 acres (2 hectares), mainly on a sloping pasture, with about 10 Ash trees (fresnos), wild blackberries and good ol´ stinging nettles.

These stone huts were used as summer pasture huts for dairy farmers, using a traditional manure recycling system: housing the cows on the bottom floor which has a stone canal (wedged by foot thick stone slabs) leading out the south side to drain and collect manure and urine. In late early spring this is spread around the pasture grasses as fertilizer for a healthy summer pasture. There´s a good video on it here.

The second story, with a wood floor (now needing repair) was for the shepherd and family to sleep, cook in the chimney, and store/dry hay. Conditions were very rustic: no electricity or running water, and the "chimney" was really just a stone slab for a fire, and some cracks on the ceiling above it to let the smoke out.

Around the cabaña: it has three "annexes": a bebedero, or stone watering tank, at one time fed by the spring at the edge of the property (the hose was broken when the road was made); a muradal, or a stone walled retainer for cow manure; and a borcil, or a man-made cave (for making cheese!!?).

Geographically, this is the Enguinza massif, directly above is Pico El Mortirio, down the slope from the cabaña: los Averones cave; 1 km away we have the Los Pozos de Noja: two man-made ponds for the 17th cannon factory and all around: views of Santander and the Cantabrian sea.

Averones cave entrance, with La cabaña above it.