Las Cuevas de Cañart

Las Cuevas de Cañart was an independent municipality until 1969, when it was absorbed into the larger municipal district of Castellote, along with the neighbouring settlements of Ladruñán, Dos Torres de Mercader, and Santolea.

Las Cuevas de Cañart is a walled medieval town whose historic street plan has survived largely intact. It sits on the southern slopes of the Sierra de la Garrocha and was historically part of the Encomienda de Castellote, a territory shaped by King Alfonso II and the Military Orders as they repopulated the eastern part of Teruel and pushed toward the reconquest of the Kingdom of Valencia.

The town's layout is unusual. Rather than following the contours of the hill where a castle once stood — now vanished — the streets run north to south along the slope, organised around the Calle Mayor as a central spine. The result is an elongated plan, roughly perpendicular to the old castle hill.

Of the original walls, only the Portal de Marzo gateway survives, though the walls themselves are thought to have enclosed the full extent of the present town, excluding the two convents.

The baroque church of San Pedro Apóstol is the main religious building. The Convento de Monjes Servitas arrived in 1727, when the Servite monks relocated from a cave at San Miguel in nearby Ladruñán. It fell into decline after the Mendizábal confiscations and was destroyed during the Carlist Wars.

More striking is the Convento de las Concepcionistas Franciscanas. Founded in 1678 — with construction begun in 1669 — it was financed entirely by a local nobleman, Domingo Bellido, who left his entire estate for the purpose in his will. Franciscan enclosed nuns lived there, wearing white tunics and blue cloaks embroidered with the image of the Immaculate Conception, until 1981, when the community moved to a convent in Borja. The sheer scale of this monastery relative to a town of barely 300 people makes it stand out.

Other heritage includes two hermitages — the Virgen de los Pueyos and San Blas — the town hall, the manor houses of the Arellano and Moliner families, a historic communal oven, and a series of porticoed passages that open up the streetscape.