The City Council wants to rehabilitate the more than 500 cave houses in the municipality and turn them into a tourist attraction
The Lorquí City Council wants to recover some of the signs that identified this municipality of the Vega Media during the 19th and 20th centuries. To do this, within the framework of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, it has been proposed to recover the cave houses that are scattered on the headlands of the highest areas of the town that have not yet been rehabilitated by their owners. It is an action that also has the support of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces and the University of Murcia.
With more than 500 cave houses, Lorquí is the municipality with the highest rate of troglodyte dwellings in the entire Region and one of the largest in Spain. It is a set of unique models within its genre, since most of them are hidden by modern facades that precede them and a patio that completed the way of life in these places. They usually have a central space that articulates, through arches or flat structures, the access to the other rooms. The ceilings are vaulted and sometimes reach four meters in height.
Surely one of the claims of our ancestors to settle in these caves was the pleasant temperature that is enjoyed throughout the year and especially in summer, where the thermometer does not rise above 25 degrees. The cave houses are protected by the Public Administration for their historical, artistic and ethnological value and some of them, such as that of the Los Tablachos family, have been converted into small museums with the exhibition of elements and utensils from the past.
Lorquí has the highest rate of troglodyte dwellings in the Region and one of the highest in all of Spain
For decades, the Ilorcitanos have been building a complex system of interactions between land, caves, buildings, landfills, roads and structures, in which instabilities have been progressively registered. This process has caused the abandonment of their homes by many of its inhabitants, or the reduction of the quality of life of those others who did not have another or the sufficient resources to obtain it.
“The situation of these houses was especially deteriorated as of 1989 as a result of different episodes of torrential rains”, point out the technicians Luis Bernardeau and Miguel Ángel Redondo. Hence the need to act on these heads in recent years.
Financing routes
Over the next few years, the City Council intends to allocate resources and explore ways of financing to make the caves a habitable place for the population of Ilorcitana and value their important contribution to the heritage of the municipality. Until now, the budget is being carried out through three channels: by private initiative of the owners, by collaboration between the city council and owners, and by the European project ‘Life Cityadap3’.
On the other hand, the City Council has launched a system of aid aimed at the recovery of homes affected by the geological nature of the hills, causing falls, landslides or structural stability problems, in addition to those interventions whose purpose is the recovery of traditional construction materials and systems. The amount of the aid ranges between 1,000 and 10,000 euros per applicant. The overall budget amounts to almost 400,000 euros.
Among the residents of Lorquí, a special interest in rehabilitating these houses has been awakened in recent years. Thus, some of their owners have been the first to proceed to enhance their value and, in some cases, to open them wide so that they can be visited. An example is the informative work carried out by the associations Friends of Heritage and the Caves of Lorquí, Camino del Humanismo y de la Ciencia and Cueva Los Tablachos Association. Nor is the ingenuity of some neighbors lacking, such as that of Santiago Martínez Alcolea, who has rehabilitated the Cueva Flamenca to turn it into an original setting for performances and other events.
For the mayor of Lorquí, Joaquín Hernández, the geography of the town’s heads «has allowed, for years, and still today, to live in cave houses, which are a type of sustainable and responsible housing. We are facing a sum of investments that, in the medium term, will create a unique space in the Region».