It is a tower of two heights, made with masonry and attached to a house with the same name, located in the central area of the garden of the Partida de la Condomina.
It is installed in a stately building built in 1857. It has the uniqueness of having some curious arcades in the ground with a corridor that serves the small square "dels Portxins".
The Pobla Medieval d 'Ifac stands out for being currently a unique site in the Valencian Community, and is the only Pobla de Conquista that has not been investigated, excavated or transformed beforehand, which makes it a unique and exceptional site. It is an urban enclave of the late thirteenth century, driven by Admiral Roger de Llúria, one of the most important characters of this time. It is a huge walled enclosure, endowed with a complex access system, rooms, warehouses, houses and an imposing church dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels with a medieval necropolis at its feet. It will be a short-lived foundation, not exceeding 100 years of existence. The historical ups and downs forced the abandonment and transfer of the settlers of Ifach to the hill where the walls and the Casco Antiguo de Calp are currently located.
The older people of Elche remember when it still served as a textile factory and even intermittently, as a prison. The dramatic process of renovation experienced by the Palace of Altamira, or Alcazar de la Señoría,makes it one of the best preserved strongholds in the province of Alicante, and at the same time an essential monumental point of reference of vital importance for the city. Residence of the noblemen of Elche between the XV and the XIX centuries, its Torre del Homenaje or Keep also housed the Kings Jaime II and Pedro IV and the Catholic Monarchs during their stays in the city and hosted the meetings of the General Council of the City up to the XV century. Factory and Prison In the construction process of the Palace of Altamira several important stages stand out. The first corresponds to the Islamic period between the XI and XIII centuries. In the present day some stretches of the City Wall from this time may be seen, along with remnants of dwellings and drainage channels, which are not visible, as well as a monumental entrance gate and the Keep, of which only the ground floor belongs to this period. The second phase, between the XV and XVI centuries, occurred after Gutierre de Cárdenas took possession of the lordship. This rebuilding work, defined by its decisive and extensive nature, shaped the general lines of the current form of the Palace. Subsequently, in the XVIII century, the Count of Altamira added a manor house of two floors to the original wall, which currently constitutes its south-facing facade. It is polygonal in shape, with angles defined by projecting circular hubs, except in the area occupied by the Keep, which has a square base and three floors. Its rooms and the outbuildings of the western wing intermittently housed a prison from the XVIII century until 1959. In 1915, the building was acquired by a local industrialist who built a textile factory in the Patio de Armas or parade ground, adjoined to the east wall, which was in operation until the end of the 1960s, at the same time as the prison. Nowadays this same parade ground is sometimes made use of as a perfect arena for social and cultural events. Restoration After being expropriated by the City Council in the 1970s in the last century, restoration of the building was carried out, including the outbuildings of the former factory, which, once refurbished, went on to house the Alejandro Ramos Folqués Municipal Archaeological Museum. In 2005, after further restoration, which brought to light remnants of the original stronghold, including an upper entrance gate from the banks of the river, whose existence was previously unknown, the palace came to form part of the new Archaeological and History Museum of Elche (MAHE). This centre was inaugurated in 2006 in conjunction with the return, for a period of six months only, of the Lady Elche, who was housed on the ground floor of the Torre del Homenaje or Keep, where an exact copy of the Iberian bust is currently displayed, ceded by the Provincial Archaeological Museum (MARQ).
The Resemblanc Tower is located south of the town of Elche, on the outside of a farm to which it is attached within the so-called Huerto de la Torreta. Its origin, like other towers of the garden of Elche, is due to the fact that in the year 1552 a Berber vessel headed by Salah Rais, arrives at the coast of Elche, in the vicinity of the beach of Pinet, poorly defended by some watchmen. , to prevent the smugglers from crossing the lagoon under cover of the night and the controls imposed by the Marquis of Elche, and they realize the little defensive presence. They take land and quickly go to the town of Elche, where, after attempting their assault, they captured important booty in goods and people. This causes the authorities and the upper classes to create what is known as the Coastguard, an institution responsible for creating a dense network of alert and prevention of attacks from coastal enclaves and urban enclosures, since in 1550 the pirate Dragut, a mercenary salary of the Turks, punished the coasts of the Alicante garden where the defenses relaxed. Therefore, the authorities decided to provide the coast of Elche and the town of Elche, as well as its garden, with a defensive system that would keep the alert against the Moorish attacks, thus creating a series of defense towers with the aim of stopping the attacks of the pirates, raising a system along the huert and ilicitana coast with several watchtowers, among which they highlighted Ressemblanc, Vaillós, Palombar, Carrús, Asprillas, Estaña and Gaitán, that together with the coastal ones of Tamarit, Pinet , Escaletes, Talayola and Carabassí, constituting the defensive system annexed to the city of Elche and the fortress of Santa Pola, thanks to the expert Italian engineer Giovanni Baptista Antonelli in the year 1,562. It is a garden tower with a square floor and a prismatic body of four heights. The base is slightly rounded thanks to a solid plinth with a beveled edge. All the filling is irregular masonry formed by limestone and rigged with white lime mortar and gravel. As noble elements it is necessary to emphasize the masonry chained of its corners, finishing off with a corsera, of which at the moment only the modillions of the same one are conserved. The openings are of ashlar masonry, accessing the interior by an architraveled door that is located at the height of the second floor, covered with wooden beams and sky plementry. The first floor is covered with a vaulted vault and has an open space to raise the floor. The two remaining heights are very similar, being covered by wooden beams and brick plinth. These four floors communicated with each other through a spiral staircase, built in brick and plaster, which allows access to the roof by means of a sentry box also raised in material analogues. It has several rectangular and linteled windows and in its South wall there is a shield emblazoned in stone adhered to it. All of it is in a perfect state of preservation. Like the Tower of Vaillós, there are no documentary references about its construction period, although it has been granted a low medieval or even Islamic origin. The most probable thing is that it was a low medieval tower that dates back to the end of the XV century or the beginning of the XVI century, and its function was created that was control and surveillance of a piece of the Mayor canal of the town, existing in its surroundings.
The research project of the archaeological site Castellar de la Morera –also known as Castellar d'Elx– aims at documenting one of the most interesting sites within the Islamic archaeology scene in Alicante. This project has been promoted by the Archaeological Museum of Alicante (MARQ), with the participation of the University of Alicante and the support from the Archaeological and History Museum of Elche (MAHE). Cristóbal Sanz in 1621 and Pedro Ibarra –the historian from Elche– in the 1920s already mentioned it. This piece of research tries to highlight a place that has been forgotten by research and to redefine the problems of the early Islamic settlement in the region of Elche. It is a team-based piece of research, run by Pierre Guichard, Sonia Gutiérrez Lloret and José Luis Menéndez Fueyo. The project's main aim is to explain the settlement historically in the light of the eventful processes of an Islamic society's foundation between the 8th and 10th centuries.
Download your Alicante guide!