Mogrovejo

Mogrovejo is officially protected as a historic ensemble. The village holds a collection of stone manor houses built from cut ashlar and rubble masonry, many enclosed by high walls with monumental gateways and decorated with wrought-iron balconies. The parish church, dedicated to Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, contains a baroque altar, an old crucifix, and a Gothic-Flemish figure known as La Milagrosa.

The Casona de Vicente de Celis carries the Estrada coat of arms. There is also a medieval tower, the Torre de Mogrovejo, and the village's single surviving hórreo, the traditional raised granary of northern Spain.

Mogrovejo is a small village in Cantabria where the rock walls and summits of the Picos de Europa seem to rise straight out of its rooftops, amid woods of oak, holly and chestnut. Stone manor houses of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, with wrought-iron balconies, stand among simpler Lebaniego-style homes whose upper floors, walled with woven branches plastered in mud, served as haylofts.

The oldest building is the medieval tower, raised at the end of the thirteenth century and about 21 metres tall. It is private, but the ground around it gives a wide view of the valley. Beside it stands the Casa de los Condes de Mogrovejo, a medieval manor reworked in the nineteenth century, and the Casona de Vicente de Celis carries the Estrada coat of arms. The Museo de la Escuela Rural recreates a traditional village school, and the circular Bajo los Picos walk starts here.

Mogrovejo joined Los Pueblos Más Bonitos de España in 2020. The label is awarded by a private association, not the state: a village applies and is audited against around 40 criteria, from how its historic buildings are conserved to the upkeep of its streets, and members are reviewed and can lose it. Mogrovejo is one of 7 members in Cantabria, out of 126 in Spain. See all heritage towns in Cantabria.