Valderas

Written records of Valderas begin only in the early twelfth century, but the town's history reaches back further through legend and archaeology. One well-known local story concerns a noblewoman named María de las Hazas, who, when the Visigothic king Witiza ordered all weapons destroyed and turned into farming tools, persuaded her neighbours to keep the best arms hidden. When Moorish troops passed through the town on their way north to confront Pelayo, those hidden weapons proved useless and the town was burned. The story is said to explain the town's coat of arms, which shows a hand pulling a banner from flames.

Before written documentation begins, another early reference — possibly pointing to Valderas — describes a fortification built by a Hispano-Muslim settler named Mazaref, from a prominent Mozarabic family that repopulated the Duero valley.

From the reign of Queen Urraca I of León (1109–1126), Valderas appears consistently in official records. The town was governed by a succession of tenants, including Rodrigo Fernández in 1134 and Count Ponce de Minerva from 1159. Under Fernando II (1157–1188), a fortification was raised on the hill now known as Altafría — its ruined towers still stand — and a town wall was built running from those towers down around the hillock to the Gate of San Isidro, where the terrain and the river provided natural protection.

The town passed into the hands of the Osorio family, lords of the Seven Villas of Campos, of which Valderas was the capital. One Pedro Álvarez Osorio was killed on the orders of King Pedro I in 1360. A later descendant of the same name became the first Count of Trastámara by grant of King Juan II of Castile in 1445. Under Osorio leadership, Valderas backed Enrique de Trastámara against Pedro I in the civil war of 1366–1369, and later defended Juan I of Castile when English and Portuguese forces invaded and laid siege to the town during the conflict of 1388.

Valderas was declared a site of cultural interest — a Bien de Interés Cultural — by the Junta de Castilla y León in 2008, recognising the overall historic ensemble of the town rather than any single building.

The fabric of the old centre reflects two distinct traditions: stone manor houses and noble residences decorated with family coats of arms, and the more typical vernacular architecture of the Tierra de Campos, built from mud brick, adobe, or rammed earth and covered with red-tiled roofs. The street plan of the oldest quarter follows a medieval layout, converging on a series of plazas, with some streets still shaped by the line of the original town wall. Two gateways from the first wall survive, along with sections of the wall itself.

The Plaza Mayor stands at the heart of the old town, inside the first wall. Originally called the Plaza de Santa María del Azogue — a name derived from the Arabic for market square — it was once arcaded on all four sides, though only two arcaded sides remain. The square holds the old town hall and the church of Santa María del Azogue, a medieval building remodelled in later centuries. A weekly market is still held here.

Leading off the plaza, the Calle de los Castillos passes the church of San Claudio el Nuevo — formerly a Discalced Carmelite convent, now a sanctuary dedicated to the Virgin del Socorro — and the house of Álvar Pérez Osorio, lord of the Seven Villas of Campos. The street leads up to the Altafría hilltop and the ruins of the fortress.

The Calle de San Isidro, said to be the oldest street in town, runs parallel to the river. At its far end stood a medieval gate giving access from the east; only the base of the arch survives. The former Jewish quarter lay just beyond this gate, and a synagogue once stood on the site of what later became the Glorieta de la Cruz.

The Calle de Santiago ends at the Arco de Santiago, another surviving gateway, and retains some older houses with overhanging upper floors — a reminder that many knights of the orders of Santiago and Alcántara once lived here.