Ampudia Castle

The castle of Ampudia is the most important and best preserved in the province of Palencia. It was built between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, being declared a national monument on July 3, 1931. At the beginning of the XVII century, Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, Duke of Lerma and valide of King Felipe III, became the owner of the manor, which attracted him to the town on several occasions, making the castle the occasional seat of the court, and this was its period of maximum splendor. As a curious note, we can say that in this castle was signed the document by which the change of capital from Valladolid to Madrid took place. From then on the castle will enter a long period of abandonment until it was acquired in 1960 by Mr. Eugenio Fontaneda Pérez, who developed an arduous process of restoration that has led to the recovery of this historic building. In addition, as a result of his work as a collector, the castle houses a large and varied collection of antiques that are distributed in different rooms: archeology, sacred art, popular arts, toys, weapons, ethnography, etc.