Vélez-Rubio

Human settlement here goes back over thirty thousand years, with stone axes and flint arrowheads among the earliest finds. The town in its current location took shape at the end of the Reconquista, when Moorish and Christian inhabitants settled together in what is now the Fatín quarter — a tight grid of narrow, winding streets between the old Lorca and San Nicolás gates, surrounded by water and fertile plain. The town later grew outward around its church, town hall, and granary.

Its most ambitious phase came in the 17th and 18th centuries, when broad, straight streets and grand buildings were added. During the Peninsular War, fighting between the two sides took place across the municipality from May 1810 to September 1812, with control of the town changing hands more than once.

The Church of the Encarnación is the town's most substantial building. Its main facade is carved stone, arranged as a three-tiered altarpiece divided by pilasters, with stone figures of Saints Blas and Indalecio in niches on the lowest level. Inside, the Latin cross plan opens into three naves of different heights; the central nave has a barrel vault with twelve lunettes, the side naves have galleries covered with ribbed vaults, and a dome on pendentives rises over the crossing, lit by eight stained-glass windows. The style sits between baroque and neoclassical — ornate in structure, restrained in decoration.

The town hall dates from 1732. Its rectangular two-storey facade has three openings on each floor. The ground floor centres on a doorway framed by stone pilasters; above it sits a balcony. On the upper floor, three balconied openings are finished with ironwork, and the central one is topped with decorative moulding and a carved ornamental feature — volutes, columns, and a coat of arms — along the cornice line.

The manor houses built between the 17th and 18th centuries share a solid, weighty look: three storeys, with brick used at corners, doorways, and balconies; stone for plinths and frames; ironwork on the balconies; and in some cases a noble coat of arms on the facade. Several have groin-vaulted cellars. On the edge of town, the Fuente del Gato is a spring with cold sodium-ferruginous-acidulated water, its spout decorated with a cat's head, and a traditional gathering place on Saint Joseph's Day. Two ancient burial sites — the Necrópolis del Centeno and the late Roman Necrópolis de Fuente Grande — survive in the area, though both have suffered serious looting and agricultural damage.