A square kilometre surrounded by walls and turrets. So impregnable that was never conquered, was converted into a monastery in the XVI and XVII centuries, and called, because of its great beauty, El Escorial of la Mancha.
Little remains of the military complex that was built in the early X century by Fath ben Musa ben Zennún (908-915), as it was either destroyed or reused by the Christians in the next centuries, modifying its structure.
The fortress of the Order of Santiago, a bastion of the reconquest from the end of the XII century until the beginning of the XVI century, has largely desappeared due to the decision of Charles I of Spain in 1529 to build where the old convent and part of the old fortress were located, the current monastery of the Order of Santiago.
We don’t have a single old plan of the fortification nor the old monastery, but based on the descriptions of the “Guest books” we know that the fortress consisted of at least seven towers, of which the Póntido tower, the Palomar towe, a stretch of wall and the Albarrana (or the New Tribute) are still standing.
The walled enclosure descends from the tower Albarrana, looking for the Bedija river, passing through the gate of Sicuendes and continues with a zipper wall to end north, next to the cemetery of santa Catalina. The other enclosure, closed the population inside, and only the Water Gate remains.
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