Silk factory

From the 11th century onwards, the reputation of La Alpujarra began to grow once more thanks to the commercial importance of the new port of Almería. Much of the land was used for the cultivation of mulberry trees, and the silk of La Alpujarra was rated as highly as the finest products from the Orient.

The region’s zenith came during the 14th and 15th centuries, when great quantities of silk, wine, vegetables, nuts and aromatic oils were exported to the country’s interior or overseas, in many cases in the form of taxes paid by the Nasrid kings to the Castilian rulers.

Traces of the splendour of this period still remain; for example, in the form of once-cultivated species such as mulberry trees. These trees can reach a height of 15 metres and have grey-coloured branches that start to flower in early spring. Mulberry leaves are fed to silkworms, whose cocoons are used to make silk. Here we can find the remains of a former silk factory with an intact Moorish arch; testament to the mulberry trees that once populated this region.