Castillo de Elda

Monuments

Our castle-palace is a BIC erected by the Almohads at the end of the 12th century, occupying a 2,700 m2 polygonal enclosure with 10 square towers. For more than 800 years the castle-palace of Elda has been erected, it has been one of the monuments that best reflects the essence of the historical transformations and of the changes experienced by a small agricultural community of the valley of Medio Vinalopó that, with the Over time, it has become a large industrial and tourist city and administrative capital of the region. Islamic fortress, stately castle and county palace, was an expression of feudal power and rentier nobility and displays Muslim and feudal Christian architecture, witness to wars, noble struggles and peasant tributes, shelter of illustrious figures of the Royal Houses of Castile and Aragon , palatial residence of the nobles Corella and Coloma. The primitive access seems to be that it was on the southern flank, with a small protected enclosure and a bastion to shelter the population from possible dangers. From this phase have been recovered abundant objects mainly ceramic, glass, metal and a silver coin. The Christian phase changed its appearance, incorporating new doors and two quasicircular towers of ashlar masonry, chapel, noble rooms, warehouses and pantries, large underground cistern, secret corridor, powerful antemural and cemetery where more than 200 people were buried. Finally, the occupied walled area reached 5,231 m2 At this time there are numerous objects of ceramics, glass, metal, bone, coins, heraldic architectural ware and mural pictorial remains. When leaving in the early eighteenth century its last inhabitants, the Coloma, there is a process of irreversible deterioration, patent at the beginning of the nineteenth. In 1841 it is owned by the Crown and in 1848 it is auctioned for 121,000 reales, partially demolished and abandoned. Currently, work is being done to recover the spectacular dimension of this monument that interests researchers and professionals from all over the country. Therefore, your visit is not possible, although the objective is to try to open it to the public once the restoration process is finished, if experts advise based on the results obtained.