Since the 1980s, as table grapes and market gardening stopped paying, much of the farmland in Novelda’s partidas has filled with first and second homes. The Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua’s survey of the town’s place names notes it plainly: abandoned plots and new residents. Almost every one of those houses has a gate onto a track, and the question of how to close it comes up again and again.
Three ways to close a gate
A chain and a padlock
The commonest, and the cheapest. Its strength is the weakest of three things: the chain, the padlock and the point the chain is wrapped round. A heavy padlock on a light chain does not add much. On the plus side, it is easy to change: a new padlock and nobody else’s keys work.
A padlock through a hasp or the gate’s own bolt
Tidier, and harder to cut than a loose chain, because there is less to get a tool round. A closed-shackle padlock, where the shackle is mostly hidden, is much harder to cut than an open one.
A lock built into the gate
A proper lock and cylinder fitted into the gate, like a front door. It is the most convenient to use every day, and the cylinder can match the one on the house so a single key does both. It does mean the gate has to be suitable, and that the lock lives outdoors.
What the weather does
Novelda’s summers have reached 44.8 °C, and metal gates in full sun get very hot. Frost is rare, about a day a year on average, but the low point on record is −12.6 °C. With about 439 mm of rain a year, dust and heat are a bigger enemy of an outdoor lock here than the wet. Whatever is fitted, a dry lubricant once or twice a year helps, and a cap over the keyway keeps the dust out.
Which to choose
- A house you visit at weekends: a closed-shackle padlock through the gate bolt, changed whenever keys have gone astray.
- A house you live in: a built-in lock keyed like the house, because you will open it twice a day.
- A yard or store with things worth taking: both, and see the note on locking up a yard that stands idle.
Related
Visitors who cannot find the gate are another matter: the partidas and villages page explains how to give an address with no street number. And if it is the car rather than the gate that is locked at the end of the track, see the note for drivers off the A-31, which covers what to do anywhere. The fitting itself is booked through the lock change page.