Chelva

The land around Chelva has been occupied since the Bronze Age, with Iron Age Iberian sites and later Roman remains scattered across the municipality, including two aqueducts. The town's name derives from the Latin word for forest, *silva*, but its urban core took shape during the Muslim period, traces of which survive in the Torrecilla tower and the foundations of what became the ermita de Santa Cruz, originally built as a mosque.

Control passed to the Crown of Aragon after the Muslim ruler Zayd Abu Zayd, caught between rival powers, signed the convention of Calatayud in 1229, converted to Christianity and donated Chelva and other territories to the bishop of Albarracín-Segorbe. Local resistance from both Muslim inhabitants and the bishop of Valencia meant the handover was not fully settled until a papal ruling in 1356. A succession dispute in 1479 ended with Fernando the Catholic confirming Jaime de Pallás as the rightful viscount, and the palace was sacked and burned in 1520.

The expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609 left a sharp demographic mark. Chelva had 740 households at the time; 270 were Morisco. By 1646 the total had fallen to 400, partly because long-established Christian residents moved into depopulated villages nearby. During the Carlist Wars the town changed hands several times, and in the Civil War it sheltered Republican children evacuated from Madrid.

Chelva's most remarkable building is the Iglesia de los Ángeles, a Baroque church begun in 1626 and completed in 1692, considered a masterpiece of Valencian Baroque and home to works by 17th-century painters Pedro Orrente and Jerónimo J. Espinosa. Its bell tower carries a clock installed in 1887 that remains one of the few in Spain to show not just the time but also the day of the week and the date of the month.

The ermita de Santa Cruz, recently restored, was built in 1370 as a mosque in the Mudéjar-Morisco quarter of the Arrabal. It is one of only two datable mosques from that period surviving in the Comunidad Valenciana. The Convento de San Francisco dates from the period when the Franciscan order established itself in Valencia; the original caves used by the first friars can still be seen. The hilltop Santuario de la Virgen del Remedio, built in 1889, is the home of the town's patron image.

Beyond individual buildings, the town preserves four distinct historic quarters: the Andalusian Benacacira, the Jewish Azoque with its narrow streets and arcades, the Mudéjar Arrabal, and the post-conquest Christian districts. The Almohad Torrecilla tower was built over an earlier Iberian settlement and later served as a stronghold during the Carlist Wars. The streets also display notable ceramic tilework from the 17th and 18th centuries.