Spain · 17th century
The Castle of Urrea, also known as the palace of the Dukes of Híjar, is located in the municipality of Lucena del Cid (province of Castellón, Spain). Although at present it does not have a medieval appearance, since it was entirely remodelled in the 19th century, its origins go back to the Middle Ages and today it houses the Museu Etnològic.
The castle already existed in Muslim times, although the Christian medieval remodellings must have been very substantial, giving it Gothic characteristics that still survived in the 19th century before the last and definitive one of 1876, which gave it the appearance it has today.
It is catalogued as an Asset of cultural interest, without either an inscription or a file, despite having an identifying code: 12.04.072-002 The first written references to the castle go back to the 17th century; specifically they appear in the Capbreu of 1613, where it is said that the lord count possesses: "A walled castle with chambers and granaries... placed and situated at the top of the said town, on some crags that surround it, within the walls of the town".
Another important document referring to this building is a plan of the fortifications of Llucena in 1811 which appears in a report, already cited above, on the defences of the town in anticipation of a French attack in the period of the Peninsular War. In that plan one can see the plan of the castle, which is just as Pascual Madoz later describes it, but with four towers, one at each corner of the building, and not only two as might be inferred from his description. Madoz says of the castle:
In 1876, in view of the poor state of the building, and to adapt it better to its function as the prison of the judicial district, it was entirely remodelled, the castle thus acquiring the appearance it has today.
Machine-translated from “Castillo de Urrea” on the Spanish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Castle of Urrea ranks #8,630 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #572 of the 607 mapped in Spain. Founded c. 1650, it is older than 25% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 721 atlas entries founded in the 17th century. 9 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Castellón de la Plana, 27 km away. See how Spain compares in the castle statistics.
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