Virgin of the Val

Marian Advocation of Alcalá de Henares (Community of Madrid)

Patrona de Alcalá de Henares, Alcaldess Perpetua of the city since 1924 and Doctor honoris cause of his university. According to the pious tradition, about 1184 a farmer found an image of the alabaster of the Virgin with the Child on the banks of the Henares River, presumably dating back to the XIXth-12th centuries. The legend tells us that the finder was miraculously rescued from the waters and that the image returned to the site when they tried to move it, a sign interpreted as the Virgin's desire to remain in that place. In 1791 she was appointed head of the College of Manriques.

Main data

Origin and history

Patrona de Alcalá de Henares, Alcaldess Perpetua of the city since 1924 and Doctor honoris cause of his university. According to the pious tradition, about 1184 a farmer found an image of the alabaster of the Virgin with the Child on the banks of the Henares River, presumably dating back to the XIXth-12th centuries. The legend tells us that the finder was miraculously rescued from the waters and that the image returned to the site when they tried to move it, a sign interpreted as the Virgin's desire to remain in that place. In 1791 she was appointed head of the College of Manriques.

The image and the sanctuary

The first hermitage was replaced in 1376 by a Gothic construction by order of the Archbishop of Toledo Pedro Tenorio. The present hermitage, in a neo-Gothic and neomudéjar style, was designed by the architect José de Azpíroz and Azpíroz and was inaugurated in 1929. The original image was destroyed during the Civil War (1936); the image that today was venerated was installed in 1945.

Sponsorship and coronation

Patrona de Alcalá de Henares. Canonically crowned in 2009.

Party and devotion

Third Sunday of September (since 1882). The parties in the El Val district coincide with this celebration.

Link to the Rosary

The sources consulted do not show a specific or unique link between this devotion and the Rosary.