Spain · 15th century
The Jaureguía tower house is located in Donamaría (Navarre, Spain). It is one of the most typical examples of the lineage tower houses common in Navarre in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Its owner, the lord of Donamaría, already appears as exempted from certain levies ("cuarteles") in the reign of Charles III; he is also recorded in 1513 as a gentilhombre exento de cuarteles. However, the house does not appear on the list of palacios cabo de armería that the Diputación del Reino ordered drawn up in 1728. Jaureguía means "the palace" in Basque, a mark of the role played in the area by the family that occupied the house.
The tower house stands in an isolated spot in the Uxarrea quarter, in Donamaría, as a prismatic, rectangular-plan volume, built at its lower part in ashlar and topped by a timber structure (a cadalso). Although it is a defensive construction, it has been used as a dwelling since the 16th century. It was declared a Site of Cultural Interest in 1993, and restored in 2000 and 2001.
Machine-translated from “Casa-torre de Jaureguía” on the Spanish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Donamariko Jauregia ranks #7,075 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #357 of the 607 mapped in Spain. Founded 1488, it is older than 44% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 554 atlas entries founded in the 15th century. 1 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Vitoria-Gasteiz, 86 km away. See how Spain compares in the castle statistics.
View on the interactive castle map →