Puntos de Interés
Culture
Labor del Acequión
The city of Albacete has long based its economy on agriculture and livestock farming, as shown by the creation of its important fair, granted by Felipe V, which later became the current Albacete Fair.
This was due to the proliferation of different agricultural and livestock farms scattered throughout the province. Judging by its structure and distribution, the Labor del Acequión was an estate capable of being self-sufficient, thanks to the animals and crops it possessed.
It is located very close to the Acequión aqueduct and the endorheic lagoon from which it gets its name, probably due to the intention of its owners to be self-sufficient in water to irrigate the different crops they grew.
Consultation of the documentary collection of the Provincial Archive of Albacete shows that in the mid-19th century there were up to 21 people living in the house of Acequión. In the 1890 census there were 24 inhabitants and according to the 1893 tax census there were 5 pairs of mules for agricultural work. Pascual Madoz also mentions this farmhouse in his Geographical-Statistical-Historical Dictionary of 1850 as a hamlet in the province, within the jurisdiction of the courts of the district of Albacete. It is located next to the lake of the same name, and is inhabited by a farmer with 6 pairs of mules. All these data are a true reflection of the size and importance that this farmhouse had in the past. Now it has more than 42 hectares of land separated into three cadastral plots and with different buildings for agricultural, livestock and residential use, separated by a dirt road with several corrals in its interior, keeping a uniform aesthetic. Observing the dimensions and the quality and quantity of the buildings, it even has a bell tower and oratory, there is no doubt that the Labour Acequión is and was one of the most important, forming one of the best examples of traditional architecture of great cultural and ethnographic value that transports the traveller to times gone by.