Urueña Castle

It was ordered to be built around the year 1060 (11th century) by the Castilian monarch Ferdinand I the Great on the remains of an ancient Roman fortification. Here resided very influential characters of the Castilian history, as it was the queen Doña Urraca (XII century), whose presence gave name to the aforementioned tower or María de Padilla, who was confined in the castle in the middle of the XIV century by her lover Pedro I the Cruel, who visited her while married to Blanca de Borbón. Located in the south-eastern end of the town, it has a rectangular shape adorned with semicircular cubes along its entire perimeter, except for the one located to the south, the so-called Torre del Homenaje, which has a square shape. At the point where the castle meets the wall is a large cube known as the Peinador de la Reina or Torreón de Doña Urraca, which is the highest point of the castle-murallas monumental complex at nearly 17 meters high. Nowadays it only conserves the exterior walls, having disappeared completely the different rooms that it could have had in the past. On the other hand, this fortress-castle was also used as a prison. Within its walls was condemned, among others, Count Pedro Vélez, who died in a peculiar way when he was found in love with a cousin of King Sancho III el Deseado (1157-1158). The sentence, issued by the monarch, read as follows: Do not give him anything where he can lie and from four to four months a limb will be taken away from him until with pain his life will be finished. The Count of Luna, the Count of Urgel, and the Infanta Beatriz of Portugal were also taken prisoner here. In the middle of the 15th century it came into the possession of the Counts of Urueña, being the residence of the corregidor through whom they were represented in the town.