Jorox

Jorox

Its place name suggests that Jorox was a Moorish settlement, well placed on a flat knoll but still a well-defended site. Three of its sides have steep banks leading down to the mountain streams, which until the 1970s powered numerous mills. The large Moorish village of Tolox is only four kilometres to the south and therefore is seems likely that the two communities had more contact with each other, rather than with Alozaina whose municipal district it is lies within today.

Today Jorox is a quiet hamlet just of the A366 between Alozaina and Yunquera. 100 years ago, boasted 200 inhabitants. Nothing seems to be more than 300 years old and the community must have been re established well after the Morisco expulsions in 1570. The only remains from the past are the aqueducts that fed the mills visible nearby.

Jorox is a dying hamlet, as much rural life left after the arrival of electricity 30 years ago. Until then, the fast flowing streams of the River Jorox were the source of energy that powered up to nine flour mills. Jorox was the place to bring grain to be ground for the daily baking. The village was even able to hold its own feast day, El Dia de la Cruz, which was the envy of Alozaina. The wealth this brought to the village enabled it to build its own church and a school.

As electricity replaced waterpower, so the mills closed and the population declined. Latterday vandals and souvenir hunters plundered the sites and built villas in key spots that obliterated the past. Today very little can be seen but a good example can be visited.

The old school room can be seen on the side of the road. The chapel is at the top of the knoll, originally the centre of the village. As peacetime economics shifted the focus from knoll to valley, the population gravitated towards the stream below. Palaeolithic finds have been unearthed at the nearby cave of Algarrobo.

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