A Street Name Rooted in the Soil

Along Carrer de les Parellades in Sitges, a ceramic street sign offers a clue to the meaning of an old name. Its scene of a farmer guiding two oxen through a field recalls a time when land was measured by the labor required to cultivate it.

A parellada was an agricultural measure associated with the area that a pair of oxen could plow in a day. The word derives from parell, meaning “pair”.

The scene on the sign illustrates that connection, giving a familiar street name a meaning that might otherwise go unnoticed.

It was a practical way of understanding land. Rather than describing its dimensions alone, the measure related a field to a day’s work. Within the name lies the effort of the farmer, the strength of the animals and the steady progress of a plow across the soil.

As Sitges expanded beyond its earlier enclosed center, development followed the axis of Carrer de les Parellades. Cap de la Vila became an important meeting place for civic and religious life, while the street formed part of the growing town.

Today, shops, homes and balconies give the street an urban character. Pedestrians move through a setting far removed from the agricultural work suggested by its name. Yet the ceramic sign keeps that older meaning visible.

Its painted oxen do more than decorate a corner. They explain a word and preserve a connection to the land. In the middle of everyday activity, a small detail invites people to recognize how traces of earlier ways of life remain within the names of familiar places.