Reservoirs

Of Jandula

It is one of the most beautiful enclaves of the Sierra de Andujar Natural Park. It is accessed through the A-6177 (Andujar-Virgen de la Cabeza Sanctuary). At km 14,750, past "Los Pinos" Tourist Complex, we will take the JH-2005 on the right and we will reach the crossroads where the "Los Escoriales" farm is located. On the left we will take the JF-5004 (unpaved lane), which will take us to the dam (about 9 km).

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The type of dam is gravity masonry and cyclopean concrete and curved plant, with a height above the channel of 87 m, a coronation length of 240 m. It has a capacity of 322 hm3 and its crowning height is 357.60 meters above sea level. It belongs to the Confederación Hidrográfica del Guadalquivir (Hydrographic Confederation of the Guadalquivir) and its main function is the electrical production together with the regulation of the ecological flow.

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This dam was designed by Architect D. Castro Fernández Shaw and has been included in the General Catalog of the Andalusian Historical Heritage, under the Ministry of Culture of the Andalusian goverment.

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Built between 1924 and 1932, Fernandez Shaw shows in this work, one of its first, a formal and conceptual symbiosis between expressionism and rationalism, architectural currents of the twentieth century. In this case, the expressive aspect, defined by a massive and powerful use of the material that it underlines, through a dramatic and direct reading of the function to which it obeys, predominates, some clear monumental connotations referring to the domain of man over the natural. Rotundity that is tinged in the undulating forms that break its base in an eloquent simile of recovery of the freedom of contained waters.

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Next to the dam is the "La Lancha" Village, built to house the workers participating in its construction and their families. Currently, it is practically in ruins, leaving only some habitable buildings that are even used by some personnel in charge of the surveillance and maintenance of the dam. There were about a thousand workers who participated in the work and about two thousand relatives who accompanied them, so it came to have more than three thousand inhabitants this town. It had a small hospital, Civil Guard post, commissary, theater, church and a large stable that was worth to shelter the animals they used to transport materials and people.

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Along the road and to the edge of the swamp, it is not difficult to spot some deer, buck, mouflon, etc. If it is autumn, the deer will offer us the sound show of the bellow and, with a little luck, we will be able to contemplate the fight of the males horn against horn. It is also an ideal place for fishing, mainly black-bass, carp and barbel; and as a curiosity, there is a fish that only inhabits this area, called Bogardilla.