Mosqueruela

The land around Mosqueruela has been occupied since the Copper Age, when people worked flint here. The Bronze Age left settlement traces at several sites, and the Iberian period saw intense use of the territory at places including San Antonio and Osicerda. Roman remains are comparatively scarce.

The town enters written history in 1181, when Alfonso II reconquered it from the Moors. Jaime I later used it as a forward base for his conquest of Valencia, and the nearby Castillo de Mallo, held by Muslim forces until 1234, was eventually incorporated into the town's territory in 1333 after a long dispute with neighbouring Villafranca del Cid.

Through the medieval period Mosqueruela grew wealthy on livestock and wool. It resisted Castilian attack during the war of the two Pedros and was rewarded in 1366 with the title of Villa and the right to hold fairs and markets, becoming the head of 65 dependent villages with its own civil and criminal jurisdiction.

Decline came in the nineteenth century through the Carlist Wars and a collapse of the livestock economy. The town was a front line in May 1938 during the Spanish Civil War, defended for weeks before being lost to Francoist forces on 17 May.

Within the municipal area, two rock-art shelters in the Barranco de Givert contain significant examples of Levantine cave painting — human figures, hunting scenes, animals and schematic signs in red — that form part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing for Spanish Levantine rock art. The Cueva de la Estrella holds carved panels with cup marks linked by channels and a circular figure.

The town itself is one of the best-preserved examples of medieval orthogonal urban planning in the Teruel highlands. Its historic centre, declared a protected heritage site in 1982, is organised around the arcaded Calle Mayor. On the Plaza Mayor stand the parish church and the town hall facing each other directly.

The church of the Asunción dates in its current form to 1722, though it preserves elements of earlier buildings from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It has three naves, a barrel-vaulted central nave, a three-storey octagonal tower, a Gothic south portal, a Gothic chapel of the Salvador with a stone retable, and a medieval monolithic baptismal font. Above the sacristy sits the Archive of the Community of Teruel, authorised in 1441.

The town hall is built over a nine-arch arcade and contains the old council chamber, jail and municipal archive. The walls are among the best preserved in the province. The main gate, the Portal de San Roque, has a pointed arch on the outside and a lower arch inside, with a barrel vault between them. Three other original gateways survive: the Portal de Vistorre, the Portal del Postigo, and the Portal de Teruel. The street called Ricos Hombres is notable for its wooden eaves, one building decorated with over a hundred baroque rosettes. The Hospital building on Calle Isabel Blesa carries an inscription recording its construction date of 1557.