Fuentidueña

Fuentidueña is one of the oldest repopulation settlements in the province of Segovia. Despite repeated raids by Abderramán II in the first half of the tenth century, and the devastating campaigns of Almanzor in the second half, the area was resettled earlier than most of the surrounding region.

A stone found in Calle Pósito, inscribed and dated 1002, may mark Almanzor's final campaign before the battle of Calatañazor, according to local historian César Herrero.

The town's peak came in the second half of the tenth century and through the eleventh. During this period it was enclosed by a substantial circuit of walls — walls that the growing population quickly outgrew to the north, as shown by the Romanesque church of Santa María standing outside the original perimeter. By the early thirteenth century Fuentidueña had become a Comunidad de Villa y Tierra, an administrative unit grouping the town with the villages around it. That community still exists today, with Fuentidueña at its head and 21 villages under it.

From the fifteenth century onwards the town declined steadily, as it lost the military and administrative roles that had driven its growth.

The original settlement sat high on the hillside around the castle and the church of San Martín. Over the centuries the population moved downhill toward the riverbank, a process that has continued into recent decades. Today the inhabited area covers the lower third of the walled enclosure and the strip beyond the walls.

In March 2007 the historic centre was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural in the category of conjunto histórico.

The entire historic centre of Fuentidueña carries protected status as a conjunto histórico, and several monuments within it hold individual designation as Bienes de Interés Cultural.

The castle ruins and their surroundings were given BIC status in 1949. The town walls survive with three original gateways: the Puerta del Palacio, the Puerta de la Calzada, and the Puerta de Alfonso VIII.

The ruined church of San Martín, sitting high on the hillside, was declared a BIC in 1931. The parish church of San Miguel received the same status in 1995 and remains in use. The church of Santa María, once the church of the settlement outside the walls, has been restored in recent years.

Two further buildings carry individual protection: the ruined Hospital de la Magdalena (BIC 1995) and the Capilla del Pilar, the chapel of the former palace of the Counts of Montijo (BIC 1996).

At the upper end of the walled enclosure, a medieval rock-cut necropolis survives, its graves carved directly into the stone in anthropomorphic form.

A large stone bridge crosses the river below the town. Calle Nueva preserves some examples of traditional timber-framed construction. Scattered across the town are coats of arms, medieval funerary steles, and fragments of medieval civic doorways.