Ortigosa de Cameros

The agricultural and farming past


In the XVIII century, Ortigosa with its villages owned 40.000 head of transhumant sheep. The papers say that: they used the wool of their transhumant merino cattle, washing it in the laundry space of the same village … They had thirty looms … ten spaces for the dyeing, six boards for shearing, six presses, eleven hangers and four fuller wheels and in all these offices, even in the looms, worked up to one hundred and seventy people.
This textile activity starts to decline until the creation of the swamp, which closes the only two remaining industries, located on the banks of the river to take advantage of the hydraulic power, at the end of the 1950s.


Pueblos y Paisajes del Camero Nuevo. La Rioja