Cuelgamuros Valley

The monument took approximately nineteen years to complete and was built in large part by Republican political prisoners who worked as forced prison labour. Franco inaugurated the monument on the 1st of April 1959, the twentieth anniversary of his victory in the Civil War. Both the date chosen and the content of the inaugural speech consolidated Franco’s power and the national Catholic significance of the monument, also expressed in its architecture, its pictorial collection and the religious and legal structure from 1957 to 2022.

The monument holds the remains of 33,847 war victims, of whom more than 12,000 are unidentified. In 2003, in the crypts, the presence was discovered of Republican civilians executed by Franco's forces and who had been transferred from 1959 onwards from mass graves, without the permission or knowledge of their relatives. The absence, for decades, of a systematic re-identification of the monument has turned the Valley of Cuelgamuros into the most controversial stronghold of the memory of Franco's regime.

Law 52/2007

As a consequence of the questioning as to how the valley fits within its current setting in a democratic society, in recent years two laws have referred directly to it and have stipulated that the valley should be transformed to foster constitutional values and promote knowledge and reflection on our past.

Law 52/2007 specifies that El Valle (the Valley) will be governed strictly by the regulations generally applicable to places of worship and public cemeteries, and that no events of a political nature or those extolling the Civil War, its protagonists, or Francoism may be held in any part of the enclosure. In 2019, an amendment was introduced that permitted the exhumation of Francisco Franco on the 24th of October of the same year.

The new legislation

Law 20/2022 changes the name of the monument, which is now entitled the Valle de Cuelgamuros, and restates the prohibition of any political events or exaltation of the dictatorship or its nature as a civil cemetery. It also establishes the monument as a place of recognition, commemoration, remembrance and homage to all the victims buried there.

Through this law, the relocation of the remains found in any pre-eminent place also expires, closing down the Foundation of the Holy Cross of the Valley of the Fallen, and establishing that a Royal Decree shall determine the organisation, functioning and ownership of the Valley of Cuelgamuros. The law also specifies that the exhumation claims of the relatives who request this will be attended to.

The natural environment

In addition to the Basilica and adjacent buildings, we should note that the Valley of Cuelgamuros, located in the north-west of the Community of Madrid, in the municipality of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, is a rich nature area covering 1,365 hectares. This area constitutes a large ecological and biological reserve, due to its restricted access.

The forest surrounding the monument is man-made and forms a landscape designed to accompany the monument, following the connections between landscape and national identity established by the Franco regime. Against this backdrop, the forest was repopulated between 1949 and 1955, mainly with pines and other hardwood species, some native trees and others from different regions of Spain.