Dusty Buildings

To see other architecturally significant historical buildings, click HERE:

When a civilization ends, it does not leave behind a tombstone. Instead, it leaves stackings of stones (i.e. buildings.) We lose the remembrance of individual people, the things they said, did, and wrote, but we remember what they built because those things endure for much longer. The Ancient Greeks and Romans tell us about themselves through their Classical Architecture. We remember the Medieval period in Europe from its castles and Gothic Cathedrals. We remember the early 20th century from the Art Deco buildings it left behind. The style tells us something about their priorities, what they believed, what they knew, and what their hopes were. In a sense, the buildings that a culture leaves behind are a kind of epitaph.

Let’s look through the structural epitaphs of our ancestors.

___________________________

Castillo de Ponferrada, or Castillo de los Templarios (Ponferrada, Spain)

If there is a castle in Europe synonymous with the mysterious order of the Knights Templar… this is the one. This massive Medieval beauty has been a hill fort, a Roman citadel, and a Templar castle (the last of which is bet resembles today.) It has stood the test of time and is today a popular site on tours and pilgrimages in Northern Spain.

The site is a popular location for tours and pilgrimages, as it sits on “The Way of St. James,” but might be most well known in the present for its library. The Templars’ Library contains more than 1,300 books, including among them copies of works by Leonardo da Vinci.

(more via wiki)

The Castle of Ponferrada, also known as the Castle of the Templars, is a medieval fortress located in the Spanish city of Ponferrada, in the region of El Bierzo, province of León. It stands on a hill at the confluence of the Boeza and Sil rivers. Its current structure dates mainly from the 12th to the 15th century, with multiple extensions and reforms over time.

Originally built by the Knights Templar in the 12th century, the castle played a crucial role in the defense and control of the northwestern region of Spain. After the dissolution of the order in the 14th century, the fortress passed into the hands of the Catholic Monarchs and was later owned by various nobles, which led to further extensions and defensive improvements. The castle is a remarkable example of medieval military architecture, with an enclosure of more than 8000 square meters of robust walls, defense towers, and a complex system of courtyards and internal rooms.

Today, the castle of Ponferrada is one of the main tourist attractions in the region of El Bierzo, a landmark as a place of passage on the Camino de Santiago, and is listed as an Asset of Cultural Interest.

History

The castle is located in what was probably originally a Celtic fort, in a position similar to that of others in El Bierzo. Later it is believed that it was a Roman and Visigothic site.

Middle Ages

The Order of the Temple Around 1178 King Ferdinand II of León (r. 1157-1188) allowed the knights of the Order of the Temple to establish an encomienda in present-day Ponferrada. In 1180 the king issued a charter for the repopulation of the town that had arisen a century earlier, with the first fortification being documented around 1187.

In 1196, in the face of the attack of Alfonso VIII of Castile and due to the support that this kingdom received from the Knights Templar, Alfonso IX of León (r. 1188-1230), a crown supported by the Order of San Juan, took Ponferrada from the Templars. After several disputes, in 1211 Alfonso IX made peace with the Templars: he donated the town of Ponferrada to them in exchange for ceding some castles to them. During the reign of Ferdinand IV (r. 1295-1312), when León and Castile were already unified, the trial against the Templars took place in France, which led to the dissolution of the Order. To avoid the consequent confiscation of Ponferrada, the Leonese master of the Temple, Rodrigo Yánez, gave the town to the king’s brother, the infante Don Felipe.

The Castros and the First Count of Lemos

In 1340, Alfonso XI (r. 1312-1350) donated Ponferrada to his chief steward, Pedro Fernández de Castro (el de la Guerra), who surely began the construction of the so-called old castle of Ponferrada. Ponferrada and its castle remained in the hands of the Galician branch of the Castro family until 1374. From that year on, it remained in the hands of various and successive members of the royal family. In 1440, Ponferrada passed to Pedro Álvarez Osorio, first Count of Lemos, who had been claiming it for some time. It was this important Galician character of the fifteenth century who carried out the great works that make up the current fortress of Ponferrada, which includes: a castle, the so-called Old Castle, a walled enclosure with its barriers and a Renaissance palace.

During the Irmandiña Revolt of 1467, in which Galician peasants and knights revolted against the lords, the possessions of the Count of Lemos, including several Galician and Bierzo fortresses, were attacked after the death of his son Alonso. The Irmandiños came to surround the Castle of Ponferrada, threatening its fall. However, thanks to an agreement between King Henry IV and the Count of Trastámara, the castle managed to save itself from its imminent defeat, which resulted in victory over the Irmandiños.

The Catholic Monarchs

After various disputes and lawsuits between the heirs of Pedro Álvarez Osorio, Juana Osorio —the daughter born of his second marriage with María de Bazán— and Rodrigo Enríquez Osorio, second Count of Lemos —his bastard grandson—, the Catholic Monarchs awarded Ponferrada to Juana Osorio. Rodrigo Osorio did not comply with the resolution and after laying siege to the fortress he seized it in 1485, thus starting a rebellion against the kings. The Crown reacted by forming an important army – 600 lances and five to six thousand pawns – under the direction of the Admiral of Castile in order to take all the squares and places in Bierzo that supported the count. When the latter did not surrender, a heavy siege was undertaken with artillery to the fortress of Ponferrada, which was taken by assault in the summer of 1486. After passing Ponferrada to the Catholic Monarchs – prior to the siege of the fortress he had bought the rights to the town of Ponferrada from Doña María de Bazán and her children for 23 million maravedís – repair and reinforcement works began on the fortress, temporarily becoming the residence of the first Alcayde of Ponferrada and Corregidor of El Bierzo. Don Juan de Torres de Navarra, cousin of the monarchs.

Characteristics

In the castle enclosure, in the shape of an irregular polygon, there are two different parts: the northern part, from the twelfth century, and the rest, built throughout the fifteenth century, with some works carried out in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In ancient times the castle was surrounded by a moat, except in the northwestern canvas, where the river fulfilled the same function.

Inside there is a group of twelfth-century fortifications of Templar origin: the remains of a barbican at the access to a courtyard, to which the elliptical tower opens, part of the promenade, a tower that had three floors, the tower of Malvecino and another tower in which a pointed arch door stands out. of great artistic value.

The northwest façade constitutes a continuous parapet that ends in the Moclín tower, with an irregular hexagonal plan. Below it opened a new ring road that defended the underground that linked the castle with a cistern, located in an albarrana tower. The main façade, made of masonry, is composed of two towers that flank a wide semicircular arch. Behind this arch rose the access doors to the courtyard in which, on the left, the keep is located, from which the parade ground is accessed.

Before entering the courtyard there is a defensive enclosure that leads to the Cabrera tower, located to the south and connected to the first defensive line on the east side, at the midpoint of which stands a semicircular tower, intended for dungeons and communication with the second line of defense. The wall continues to the north, with another square tower, before accessing the tower of Malvecino, from the fifteenth century.

In the parade ground, attached to another defensive line, there are several rooms, such as the Gallery of the Tiles, demolished and covered with rubble due to the fact that in 1811 an order of the Regency of the Kingdom ordered the interior rooms to be blown up (the damage must not have been very great because in 1815 a society ball was offered in its halls) and that since 1848 the City Council of Ponferrada, with the frontal opposition of the Commission of Monuments of Ponferrada, it began to be used as a local quarry, even blowing up its walls in 1923 for the construction of a sports field.

As is often the case, I am not certain that this site really *pops* with just the pictures. I highly recommend taking one or both of the virtual tour below. The beauty and the scale will really shine through.