El Viejo Molino

El Viejo Molino, which sleeps up to 8 people in great comfort, is a lovingly restored old olive mill set in the heart of the rolling hills of the Sierra de Aracena y Picos de Aroche Natural Park in north-western Andalucía. It is an hour and a half north-west of the elegant ancient city of Seville, famed for its Moorish and Jewish heritage.

It is the home of Angie & Nick, their children and grandchildren. El Mol, as the family refers to it, is a home with all the memories of many trips the world over and we would love it to feel like home for you.

Said to be over two hundred years old, the olive mill retains much of its original structure. The oldest reference we have found to the mill dates from 1893, and two of the original millstones can still be found in the garden. At the village of Cañaveral de León there is a perfectly restored olive mill open as a museum for anyone who might want to see how El Viejo Molino might once have functioned.

The house nestles in the hills overlooking a ‘dehesa’ valley – trees as far as the eye can see. It is just a few minutes down a track, a Camino Real (or royal road), from the small town of Jabugo. Xabuga, on a 17th Century Spanish map we have, is an ancient town renowned throughout Spain, and increasingly overseas, for the quality of the ham it produces. Jamón de Bellota is produced from Black Iberian pigs fed during the autumn and winter on acorns – quite simply the finest ham in the world and a wonderful tapa.

Food plays a large part in this house! The huge ‘Mark Wilkinson’ kitchen dominates the upper part of the Mill with its ‘bar area’, its dining table, its sofas, its chandeliers and the views over the property and the hillsides to the white-washed castle-topped town of Cortegana, 5kms to the south-west.

The property has many olive trees, cork and holm oaks, and fruit trees aplenty. And in spring the orchard is alive with wild flowers. The birds sing constantly and there are some very special ones, from the spectacular Black Vulture to the gorgeous European Bee-eaters, the diminutive Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers and Crested Tits, and charms of Goldfinches. White Stork nests adorn the local churches and pylons.

And fun and relaxation are also high on the agenda – there is a lovely large new pool, two dipping pools next to the house, a pétanque pitch, a table tennis table, and a massage studio next to the pool. A large table, made from 17th Century old growth pine beams from the Guardia Civil house that guarded British mining interests at Río Tinto, sits on the top patio for eating out in the balmy evenings.