Castle of Montalbán

The castle occupies a high escarpment sliced by the Torcón river, which drops roughly one hundred metres and creates a natural defensive moat on three sides, with two ravines closing the site to east and west and enclosing an area exceeding fifteen thousand square metres. Within this broader layout the inner area retains traces of the earlier Muslim stronghold, keeping the memory of the small quadrangular plan that predated the medieval expansion.

Surrounding the interior is a crenellated curtain of masonry pierced by square defensive towers, some finished with small corner turrets. Along the southern front, where the ground is level, the defenses concentrate in a broad ditch that links the ravines and in front of this a low semicircular crenellated tower with arrow slits plays the role of a protective outer tower (a coracha). That tower continues into an outer fortified outwork, or barbican, which is built in limestone and has stone arrow slits.

The limestone barbican is pierced by three main openings and a small postern, and these gateways give onto a raised wall-walk that runs around roughly half of the main enclosure. Primary entrance to the inner area is through two gates flanked by large detached outer towers of pentagonal plan, described in the fabric for their tall pointed arches whose keystones rise to more than ten metres. These towers include three small secondary doors and preserve carved inscriptions, among them a five-pointed star.

Both detached outer towers project over the wall-walk, the left tower being solid in build while the right tower, which is in better condition, contains rooms, arrow slits and four brick machicolations that permit vertical defence; that right tower connects to the principal inner keep, which also had machicolations. Access to the detached towers runs by a stair behind the outer wall, the first sections of which have undergone restoration.

Inside the enclosure the remains show substantial survival of buildings and two large underground storage structures that served as silos or cisterns. Portions of the wall and the range of buildings that face the precipice were constructed in part with rammed earth, and in those stretches the upper parapet has been lost. Builders used rubble masonry with squared stone at the corners, limestone for key elements, brick in some machicolations, and rammed-earth techniques where noted. Overall the complex retains visible features from its successive phases but shows areas in progressive decay.