Spain · 9th century
The Alcázar of Guadalajara is a fortification of Andalusi origin from the 9th century located in Guadalajara (Spain), turned over time into a royal palace, a serge factory and a military barracks.
It forms a fortified enclosure of a little over one hectare above the Alamín ravine and beside the old Madrid road. From its origin it has occupied a space at the western entrance to Guadalajara beside the Bradamarte gate, and separates the artisan quarter of the Alcallería or Cacharrerías from the rest of the city. Its main function as an Andalusi fortification is to protect the entrance to the city and to watch over the passage through the valley of the river Henares and the Campiña. In the Christian period it fulfilled the functions of a royal palace in the image of the Royal Alcázar of Seville and the Alcázar of Córdoba, which date from the same period, until its abandonment and conversion, first into a serge factory and later into a military barracks, its last use until it was definitively destroyed in 1936.
Since 1998 a series of excavations and archaeological studies have been carried out, gradually uncovering the different layers and rooms corresponding to each period.
Machine-translated from “Alcázar Real de Guadalajara” on the Spanish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Alcázar of Guadalajara ranks #4,830 of 9,035 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #203 of the 606 mapped in Spain. Founded c. 850, it is older than 94% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 85 atlas entries founded in the 9th century. 4 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Guadalajara, 1 km away. See how Spain compares in the castle statistics.
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