Uclés

People have lived at Uclés since pre-Roman times, but the town's first period of real weight came under Arab rule, when it formed one of the most important cities in the cora of Santaver. Around 896, al-Fath ben Musa ben Zennun built a new citadel here and made Uclés the capital of a kingdom independent of the Cordoba caliphate. The town had a market, Arab baths, and a mosque measuring 23 metres wide. In 1024 the Cordoban caliph Muhammad III died poisoned within its castle walls. By 1025 its ruler controlled territory stretching to Valencia and Córdoba.

Christians took the town in 1085 following the fall of Toledo, though it changed hands more than once. The Battle of Uclés in 1108, in which the Almoravids defeated the Christian army and killed Sancho, the only son of Alfonso VI, left a deep mark on the Reconquista. In 1174 Alfonso VIII granted the town to the Order of Santiago, and from that point Uclés became the Order's principal seat — its Caput Ordinis. A charter granted to new settlers in 1179 helped the town grow. It remained central to the Order's affairs well into the late 15th century.

The castle at Uclés was built around 896 by al-Fath ben Musa ben Zennun and changed hands repeatedly over the following centuries. In 1528 much of it was demolished to make way for the current monastery, which was begun in 1529 under Charles I and not completed until 1735 under Philip V. Stone from the nearby Roman site of Segóbriga was used, particularly on the eastern façade.

Three towers from the original fortifications survive — the Torre del Pontido, the Torre del Palomar, and the Torre Albarrana — along with sections of zigzag walling. The Pontido and Palomar towers are linked by a small bridge; a rock-cut moat once separated them from the Albarrana tower, crossed by a drawbridge. The fortress originally covered a full square kilometre. During the Spanish Civil War the monastery served as a Republican hospital and later as a prison; excavations in recent years uncovered mass graves containing more than 300 people.

East of town, near the source of the Bedija river at a spot called Fuente Redonda, an ancient votive altar dedicated to the Celtic god Airón was discovered — the only known inscription to this deity, whose name survives in around 100 place names across Spain. The altar is now held at the archaeological park of Segóbriga in nearby Saelices.