Palencia Castles
Castle of Aguilar de Campoo
The walls and the castle of the Manrique family were built in
the 15th century on a previous structure.
The castle was erected on top of a Celt-Iberian vernacular structure
and became an important fortress in the 12th century.
Castle of Ampudia
Gothic noble fortress, built in the 15th century by the descendants
to Pedro García Herrera, major-general of Castile and nephew
of the bishop of Palencia Sancho de Rojas, founder of the Manor
of Ampudia.
The building is shaped as a trapezoid, with four square turrets
in the corners.
The front is symmetrical.
Don Pedro de Ayala, the Count of Salvatierra, was one of the owners
of the castle. He fought in favour of the comunera cause in the
battle of Ampudia, which confronted the followers of the emperor
and the troops of the Acuña Bishop.
In the 17th century it belonged to Francisco Gómez de Sandoval
y Rojas, Duke of Lerma and favoured by the king Felipe III. The
castle became the occasional meeting place of the royal court.
It was later abandoned. In 1960 the castle is purchased by Mr
Eugenio Fontaneda Pérez.
Today the castle houses a collection of art objects and antiques.
Castle of la Estrella de Campos
The castle was rectangular and had battlements, a moat, round
cubes attached to the corners, and a three-storey tower of homage.
Of the original tower, only a vaulted chamber with arches has
been preserved.
The fortress was built between 1502 and 1512.
The remains indicate that the building was a war structure.
It stands on a hilltop overlooking a great area of Tierra de Campos.
Castle of los Sarmiento
The original tower of the castle was smaller and may be attributed
to the same person who erected the towers of Fuensaldaña,
Peñafiel, Torrelobatón and the bottom section of
the tower in Belmonte de Campos.
The destruction of the castle in the Comunidades wars led to a
reinforcement of the castle.
Inside the tower of homage one can see how the windows were covered
to make skylights.
It was built by the Sarmiento family to replace a former 10th-century
fortress.
Its name and origin are linked to the Count of Monzón,
Don Pedro Ansúrez, the founder of the city of Valladolid.
Castle of Monzón de Campos
The oldest part is the elevated entrance of the present tower
of homage.
The coat of arms on the pointed arch of the main gate belongs
to the Rojas family and has led experts to conclude that the enclosure
was built in the 14th century.
Inside, the castle has not preserved the original distribution
except in the tower. A Romanesque door was added to the tower
of homage. It was brought in from a church that had been covered
by the water of the dam in Aguilar de Campoo.
The village of Monzón, with its castle, was the centre
of a county donated to the Ansúrez family by the kings
of León during the 10th and 11th centuries.
In the 12th century it was handed over to the Osorio family and
in the 15th and 16th centuries it was owned by the Rojas, a family
from Burgos that since 1530 had the title of Marquises of Poza.
They are likely to have built the present castle in Monzón
de Campos.
Restored by the Provincial Government of Palencia, it has been
made into a hotel
Belmonte´s Tower
The oldest section is the bottom part of the tower of homage,
which, due to its features, might have been built by Gómez
de la Isla (the builder of the castles of Fuensaldaña,
Peñafiel and Torrelobatón).
Important reform works were carried out on top of that structure
as of 1523. An additional level was added to the tower, covered
with a late-Gothic vault.
The castle is open on one side, which is unusual in Spanish castles,
like some Renaissance castles-palaces in France.
It might have been designed by the architect Juan de Badajoz the
Younger, who got inspiration from other important edifices of
the time.
The castle once stood on the border of the Kingdoms of Castile
and León, a short distance away from the castles of Medina
de Rioseco, Montealegre, Ampudia and Torremormojón. All
that remains today is a residential Tower of Homage built in the
late 15th and early 16th centuries by Juan Manul de Villena, a
member of the old lineage of the Manueles.
In 1622 it was taken over by the Manrique family, who then received
the title of Marquises of Belmonte.
Palencia guide