La Granjilla de La Fresneda de El Escorial

Furthermore, the king commissioned Juan Bautista de Toledo to build a Royal Park at La Fresneda, then a village, at the foothills of Abantos and Las Machotas, near the small village of El Escorial (equidistant of both, el Monasterio and La Granjilla).

La Granjilla was designed by Juan Bautista de Toledo as homologous, but conceptually opposed, to the Monastery of El Escorial.

Both the monk and pond expert were working under the directions of Philip II and Juan Bautista de Toledo.

This pond provides water to the other three artificial lakes and to the whole complex through a system of dams, waterways and conduits--a unique and inspired hydraulic archeology from the Spanish Renaissance.

These civil engineering works were part of an extensive network of hydraulic, environmental and infrastructural transformations stretching out from Madrid to the slopes of Abantos and mountain-tops of Santa María de la Alameda, the starting point for El Canal del Escorial, the catchment area of the Alberche river.