Outdoors

The building

The Casa do Cuadrante occupies a plot of 1,560 square metres, enclosed by a stone wall and surrounded by a garden, a paradigm of Galician gardens in the mid-19^th century. The garden has hardly been modified and the windows still seem to preserve the memory of that child who dreamed stories or looked out, wanting to escape from the Latin lessons that bored him so much. In the surroundings of the house, there are still auxiliary buildings, benches, trellises and stone stairs, which enable you to peek over the exterior walls.

The building is L-shaped and consists of two floors. The ground floor, with an area of 234 square metres, was occupied by stables, storerooms and a cellar. This design enabled the heat of the animals to be transferred to the main floor, covering 259 square metres, where the house itself was located; it was accessed from the outside by means of two stairways, one on the main façade and another in the vegetable garden. The building has two corridors, the smaller leading to the kitchen and the larger to the bedrooms.

The entrance door to the Valle-Inclán House-Museum is emblazoned with the coat of arms of the Peña family and in the four quarters you can also see the coats of arms of the Valle and Patiño families. These are clear signs of the building’s noble origin, although they are combined with other elements of a more popular nature, which can be seen in the construction.

The garden

“From the dark background of the garden, where the crickets serenaded, came murmurs and aromas. The gentle wind that brought them shook the bushes, without waking the birds sleeping therein. Sometimes the foliage would open up whispering and the white moonshine would penetrate, dispersing over the odd stone seat, hidden until then in clandestine shadows.”

This is how Valle-Inclán evoked, in one of the stories in his book Jardín Umbrío, the majesty of the garden that surrounded his grandparents’ house, the Casa do Cuadrante. Several elements still remain from that time, such as stone benches and, above all, large, outstanding trees.

Among them, a collection of ancient camellias (Camellia japonica and Camellia sasanqua) stands out, which reminded Valle-Inclán of his mother’s hands. This can be seen in the literary fiction entitled My Sister Antonia, in Jardín Umbrío:

“My mother was very beautiful, white and blonde, always dressed in silk, with a black glove in one hand, due to the lack of two fingers, and the other, which was like a camellia, all covered with rings. This was always the one we kissed and the hand with which she caressed us.”

However, the specimen par excellence in this garden, and which has witnessed the changes and evolution of that small, restless Valle into the universal writer of adulthood, is the gigantic and very old magnolia tree (Magnolia grandiflora). It is so important that it forms part of Vilanova de Arousa Town Council’s coat of arms, along with Cálago Tower.

In the garden you can also find other trees such as a yew (Taxus baccata) or a Lagerstroemia indica, which is from Australia and of considerable size, perhaps one of the largest in Galicia. In another part of the land surrounding the house there is a chestnut tree (Castanea sativa), which is also very big.

The Valle-Inclán House-Museum’s garden is used on numerous occasions to hold different types of activities and events. For example, it was used for the ceremony to award the Mussel and Cockle Festival of Vilanova de Arousa’s Gold and Diamond Insignias.

The outdoor stairways

The first floor of the Casa do Cuadrante could be accessed via one of the two outdoor stairways located on the main façade and the buttress. The first one features a small landing (or entrance patio), as well as a bench and a masonry balustrade.

More outstanding is the buttress stairway, with a balcony. Covered by an extension of the roof and enclosed with simple wooden balusters, it became a very functional space in the house. In Jardín Umbrío, Valle-Inclán mentions the outdoor stairway as part of his childhood memories:

“My grandmother had just appeared on the landing of the outdoor stairway, dragging her gouty leg and leaning on Micaela la Galana’s arm.”

This spacious landing was used to dry clothes as well as ears of corn and beans. Moreover, it provided shelter from the heat in summer and enabled the house’s inhabitants to enjoy the sun during the winter. It was also a meeting point for a pleasant chat.