The ancient springs, washhouses and historic wells in the Controguerra area

The territory of Controguerra, in addition to being crossed by the Tronto river on the Marche border, is dotted with streams and springs, which are sometimes accompanied by fountains, springs, washhouses, wells, cisterns and lakes. Particularly interesting is the ancient spring of Riparossa, located in the valley to the west of the Cona church. In the area there are three fountains, in line with each other; the "middle" spring is the oldest washhouse.

Before 1903-1904, when the fountain in Piazza del Commercio was inaugurated, the one in Riparossa was the washhouse closest to the village and this meant a great coming and going of women who went there to rinse their clothes or draw water for their daily household needs. In fact, the water was brought into the houses with large copper basins, which once made a fine show at the entrance of each house.

Traditionally, women carried basins filled with water, balancing them on their heads. To help maintain balance, a handkerchief or cloth (the sparra arrətəlatə) was rolled up between the basin and the head, which served as a "base". Another copper utensil was associated with the basin, the manner, a ladle used to draw water. The good manners of the time wanted the guest to always be offered a sip of fresh water.

Today the ancient spring of Riparossa is covered by vegetation. The entrance is reduced to a brick hole, with evident signs of the restorations of the Bourbon era. Inside there was a large rectangular room, which developed in length, invaded by mud, with an arched ceiling that had much in common with the Roman cisterns surveyed by Pasquale Rasicci in his "Antichità romane di S. Omero" e suggests very ancient construction techniques. The spring of Riparossa has inspired many popular legends.

In addition to that of Riparossa, interesting artefacts from the Bourbon era have been located on the northern slope of Colle Genovese, where Fonte Murata was found, a brick wall (covered in recent years with cement) with a nozzle from which water flows, in Contrada Pazzano, where among the many springs there is one which conceals, a few centimeters under the mud, a bronze spout with anthropomorphic decoration, and along the road which from San Venanzio descends towards Piane Tronto, where the Fonte della Ripa and where a brick collection and settling tank has been identified – on the right side of the roadway, in the direction of Piane Tronto. Among the more recent rural buildings, there is a fountain with drinking trough located at the Azienda Agricola Tavoletti Raffaele, an ancient Ricci farmhouse, in which a plaque bearing the date "7 October 1939" was affixed, commemorating the arrival of the water in the countryside.

The wells scattered throughout the area are interesting. Among the wells that also recalls the historic Neretese include that of the Tavoletti Raffaele Agricultural Company, in the San Giovanni district, built near the Ricci farmhouse, quadrangular in shape with a gabled roof and embellished with a majolica bearing a passage from the Canticle of the Creatures , that of Montori, in the Coste di Tronto district and that of the Maurizi Agricultural Company, in the San Giovanni district, both with a particular round vaulted roof, and the "uncovered" and more traditional one of the Addarii Family, in the San Biagio district.

On the territory there were also some very ancient cisterns. There were some in the district of Riomoro and Pignotto, where they were also called Grotte dei Saraceni and until the mid-twentieth century they served as ice houses. In the district of San Biagio, a water storage cistern known as Lu truoche (or trocche) was found with the «shape of a truncated pyramid with a very accentuated flaring» and with parts in bricks and tiles, which would appear to be a work very old.