Castle of Aulencia: A Medieval Fortress in Madrid, Spain
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 3.7
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Crown of Castile
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page11 sections
History
The Castle of Aulencia is a historic fortress in Spain, located in the municipality of Villanueva de la Cañada beside the vanished village of Villafranca del Castillo. It may have Muslim origins and later became a Castilian stronghold whose recorded history extends from the fourteenth century to the present.
Early references and Castilian expansion
Documentation about the castle’s earliest phase is scarce, but it may have been the residence of the Arab leader of the surrounding area, whose authority was acknowledged through tribute from nearby villages. The first written references date from the fourteenth century, when the property belonged to García Fernández.
During the fifteenth century, the castle passed to Alfonso Álvarez de Toledo, a nobleman in the service of Juan II, the fifteenth-century king of Castile. A document issued in Madrid in 1450 described the site as a fortress. In 1455, Juan II exempted the place from taxes and ordered that both the fortification and the small settlement at its foot be called Villafranca del Castillo.
The Núñez de Toledo family, descendants of the Álvarez de Toledo family, enlarged the castle during the fifteenth century. They also surrounded its main core with a double wall, strengthening the complex’s defensive character.
Estate, ownership, and decline
By 1813, the testament of the Marqués de Gelo y Santamarca described the area as uninhabited. The property later passed to the Marqués de Sotomayor. An inventory prepared by his daughter in 1844 listed a settlement, vineyards, holm-oak scrubland, and fields, assigning the estate a value of 1,329,850 reales, a historical Spanish currency.
Financial difficulties in maintaining the property led the marquis to sell the lands in 1868. Fernando Puig y Gilbert acquired the castle in 1880, and the Ballesteros family acquired it in 1918. The family remains its owner. During this period, the castle was used as accommodation for the estate’s caretaker.
War damage and modern protection
During the Spanish Civil War, the conflict fought in Spain from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican government and Nationalist forces, the castle sheltered a brigade of Soviet soldiers supporting the Republican Army during the Battle of Brunete in July 1937. Nationalist Army forces bombed the building during the fighting.
The Castle of Aulencia is privately owned and has been listed as a Spanish Bien de Interés Cultural, a designation for protected cultural heritage. Since 2014, it has also appeared on the Red List of endangered heritage sites.
Remains
The castle stands on Horcajo Hill near the confluence of the Aulencia and Guadarrama rivers. The Aulencia River supplied its name. The site lies within the Regional Park of the Middle Course of the Guadarrama River and its Surroundings, a protected natural area created in 1999. Its surviving arrangement consists of a compact square core enclosed by an exterior barbican, or fortified defensive enclosure.
Core and defensive enclosure
Main building
The main body measures approximately 25 metres on each side. Its walls are about 1.5 metres thick and roughly 6 metres high. Eight cylindrical towers remain standing, positioned at the corners and at the centres of the four sides. Inside, simple undecorated rooms are accompanied by several spaces below ground level.
Barbican
An exterior barbican surrounds and protects the main building. Together with the double wall associated with the fifteenth-century expansion, it forms the outer defensive arrangement around the square central structure. The castle’s architectural features resemble those of other surviving Castilian fortifications, particularly the Castle of Jadraque in Guadalajara.
Keep and surviving interior
Keep
A keep, the principal fortified tower of a castle and often a stronghold or residence, is attached to one corner of the main building. It rises more than 20 metres, occupies nearly one-quarter of the complex, and contains several storeys. Progressive ruin has made only its lowest level accessible.
Vaulted rooms
The keep’s ground floor contains two vaulted rooms connected to one another. Their entrances open onto the parade courtyard, linking the tower’s interior with the central space of the castle.
Much of the original structure survives, although the complex is undergoing progressive ruin. The standing towers, substantial walls, keep, subterranean spaces, and enclosing defenses preserve the basic form of the fortress and its successive phases of construction.
