Castillo de la Viñaza

The castle crowns a rocky promontory whose natural ledge was reshaped and faced with masonry to create a roughly rectangular defensive platform. Two distinct enclosure levels remain visible on the slope, and the surviving fabric shows construction phases attributable to both Islamic and later Christian occupation. The higher enclosure sits on the adapted rock at the hilltop and forms the complex’s central stronghold.

At the summit area a half-round tower survives, pierced by narrow slits once used for shooting, while toward the opposite end a square tower stands though partly shortened by time and collapse, its walls built from coursed stone with neatly cut corner blocks. These two towers are linked by continuous defensive walls, which defined the upper circuit and connected the principal points of defense.

Below the rocky platform the lower enclosure is marked by a masonry wall that runs close to the rock. A well-preserved square tower on this level is oriented to the southeast, retains battlemented parapets, and contains two internal cisterns used to collect and store water. The lower curtain walls that accompany this tower were raised using compacted earth techniques, creating a rammed-earth construction with parapets along their length.

Remains line the ancient approach up the promontory, where stretches of curtain wall and several smaller towers still stand in varying condition. The original gateway at the end of that path was removed in the fourteenth century to build the hermitage of Nuestra Señora de Ángeles on the hillside below. Fragments of Bronze Age and Iberian ceramics recovered from the summit link the visible medieval structures to much older episodes of occupation on the same rock. Overall the ruins are heavily weathered, with some towers and wall segments surviving more completely than other sections.