Rejas de San Esteban

In the 1789 census ordered by the Conde de Floridablanca, Rejas de San Esteban was recorded as an exempt villa within the Intendencia de Soria, under seigneurial jurisdiction and governed by an ordinary mayor appointed by the Conde de Miranda. Its population at that time stood at 369 inhabitants.

When the old regime collapsed, the town became a constitutional municipality within the region of Castilla la Vieja. By the 1842 census it had 81 households and 326 residents, and around the middle of the nineteenth century the geographer Pascual Madoz included it in his monumental geographical and statistical dictionary of Spain, where he described the settlement in some detail.

By 1966, when the municipality was dissolved and merged with San Esteban de Gormaz and eleven other surrounding towns — among them Aldea de San Esteban, Atauta, Inés, Matanza de Soria, Olmillos, Peñalba de San Esteban, Piquera de San Esteban, Quintanilla de Tres Barrios, Soto de San Esteban, Velilla de San Esteban, and Villálvaro — it still counted 99 households and 325 inhabitants.

In 2007 the town was declared a historic-artistic ensemble, recognition that rested on two things: its pair of Romanesque churches dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the survival of a coherent body of traditional vernacular architecture built from stone, adobe, and exposed timber, representative of the rural communities along the Soria bank of the Duero.

The two churches dedicated to San Martín and San Ginés are the heart of the town's appeal. Both are considered fine examples of Soriano Romanesque, and both feature a porticoed gallery — an arcaded porch running along one facade — which is itself considered of considerable architectural interest.

But the town's designation as a historic ensemble was not awarded for outstanding individual monuments alone. It also reflects the survival of a whole fabric of popular architecture typical of the Duero valley in Soria province: buildings of stone, adobe, and exposed timber that speak directly to the way people lived and worked here for generations.

The old wine cellars are a particularly vivid example. These are structures of considerable age — in some cases centuries old — made up of a series of galleries with small chambers opening off them. Traditionally, and especially on summer evenings, local people would gather at the entrance to eat and drink together, sitting on the wooden boards laid across the thresholds. Over time, many families have built small covered outdoor eating areas alongside their cellars, offering shelter from bad weather or the heavy summer sun, so the tradition of gathering there has continued across every season of the year.