He castillo of Puebla de Almenara It is currently under construction. For a month and a half they have been archaeological works and rehabilitation in this medieval fortress. The works are financed by the Cuenca Provincial Council with a budget of 200,000 euros, as confirmed to BE Cuenca the mayor of this La Mancha town, Luis Miguel Bustos. In Today for Today Cuenca We have learned about the history of this castle and the future it has in store after this restoration, chatting with Pepe Martínez Peñaroya, member of the owner family and archaeologist by profession.
Listen The castle of Puebla de Almenara is “fixed” to receive its first visits in Play SER
Interview with Pepe Martínez Peñaroya in Hoy por Hoy Cuenca. / Paco Auñón
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“It is a large castle that is relatively well preserved, although it may appear otherwise,” explains Peñaroya. “Is within a farm of holm oaks of more than two hundred hectares that is very similar to the place that the same Infante don Juan Manuel describes in the fourteenth century as a hunting and mountain landscape ”.
This castle is also known as de Santiago Jalameña. The first for belonging to the Order of Santiago and the second for the enclave in the Sierra Jalameña “of Jurassic rocks of the Secondary, an outcrop that It originally divided the lands of Uclés from those that were the Señorío del infante don Juan Manuel and later the Señorío de Villena”, Explains the archaeologist.
Tradition says that it is a fortress built in an old Andalusian square “although archaeologically this has not been confirmed yet,” says Peñaroya, which was taken by the people of Santiago and later passed into the domain of Don Juan Manuel “who does cite it in his writings ”. “Archaeologically we have evidence of a wall from the fourteenth century, the most important factory is from the 15th century and then reforms in the XVI. The outermost enclosure that we know of is made at the end of the 15th century on the occasion of the civil wars of succession in Castile that ended with the accession to the throne of Isabel I ”.
Visit to the works of the castle of Puebla de Almenara at the beginning of August by those responsible for the Provincial Council. / Provincial Council of Cuenca
Later the castle passed to the Mendoza family being one of its owners the princess of Éboli. “We have a document from 1620 in which this castle has no meaning for that family and was practically abandoned,” says the co-owner.
The intention of the Martínez Peñarroya family is, given the nature of Asset of Cultural Interest “Its conservation, its maintenance and its diffusion as a late medieval castle”.
The current works in the castle of Puebla de Almenara have already allowed an archaeological intervention around the rooms that are around the central patio to document the filling levels that have brought to light “the existence of settling basins, possibly later to the fifteenth century, unusual in the cates. An oven has also been cleaned and we have recovered a number of ceramics that can shed light on life inside the castle”.
Now a complete cleaning of the building and its surroundings is being carried out, which includes a clearing to move on to consolidate the third enclosure “with the aim that walk over the walkway safely”, Peñaroya points out, who estimates that the works will finish in the established period of four months.
“Then work will be done to organize with the Cuenca Provincial Council a series of visits by fixed and safe routes with posters and signs that explain the past of the fortress. Perhaps after Christmas you could visit and we also want to make an exhibition with the rehabilitation work in this castle.
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