Last modified: 2019-01-13 by ivan sache
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The municipality of Barbadillo de Herreros (122 inhabitants in 2010; 6,416 ha; municipal website) is located in the southeast of the Province of Burgos, 80 km of Burgos.
Barbadillo de Herreros was founded in the early 11th century as the
capital of an alfoz (group of villages) including Barbatiello,
Riocavado, Barbadillo del Pez and the whole of the Valdelaguna valley.
The village's development was boosted by the presence of iron mines,
watercourses, woods, pastures and arable land. In 1352, the village
was mentioned as Barbadiel de Ferreros ("forges"), ruled by the
Velasco family.
The Gilded Age of the village followed in 1864 the set up of a
smelting furnace to reduce iron ore; at the time, the population
increased from c. 800 to more than 1,000. A dedicated railway set up
to transport coal and iron linked Villafría de Burgos to Bezares;
Barbadillo operated two smelting furnaces and a forge. The railway was
suppressed in 1926, starting the decline of the population of the
village. The industrial activity is recalled by the Forge Museum,
inaugurated in 2000.
Barbadillo de Herreros is the birth place of Francisco Grandmontagne (1866-1936). Emigrated to Argentina, Grandmontagne founded and directed for nine years the review La Vasconia, targeted to the Basque community in Argentina. His book Vivos, tilingos y locos lindos was highly estimated by Miguel de Unamuno. Back to Spain in 1902, Grandmontagne contributed then to several newspapers.
Ivan Sache, 11 March 2011
The flag and arms of Barbadillo de Herreros, adopted on 13 April 2000 by the Municipal Council, are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 21 September 2000 by the Burgos Provincial Government, signed on 2 October 2000 by the President of the Government, and published on 16 October 2000 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 200, p. 12,619 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:
Flag: Quadrangular flag, with proportions 1:1. White with four equidistant gyrons reaching the last third, red, black, yellow and green. In the middle of the flag is placed the municipal coat of arms.
Coat of arms: Quarterly, 1. Gules a castle or masoned sable port and windows azure, 2. Argent an anvil charged with a hammer and a bird argent except the beak and legs of the bird or, 3. Argent a tree terraced vert fructed or, 4. Gules a fleur-de-lis or. The shield surmounted with a Royal crown closed.
The Royal Academy of History turned down the proposed arms because of
the use of the arms of the Kings of Castile, and recommended to change
the colour of the field. The representation of the anvil is not
acceptable, the perspective view making it difficult to identify; it
should rather be represented in frontal view. It would be much better
to drop the two other charges.
The flag is described as charged with gyrons, which are indeed wavy
triangles. The flag is charged with the rejected coat of arms, and
cannot therefore be approved until the coat of arms is approved.
[Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 2002, 199, 3: 449.]
Ivan Sache, 11 February 2015
