Villanueva de la Vera

Villanueva de la Vera grew out of four small settlements — Mesa, Curuela, Salobral, and San Antón — that took shape during the repopulation of the region in the late medieval period. Politically and administratively, these villages answered to Plasencia until Sancho IV granted them, along with others, to the Queen's chancellor, Nuño Pérez de Monroy. Ownership passed to his brother Fernando and then through successive heirs until the villages came under the lordship of the Counts of Nieva, Diego López de Zúñiga and Leonor Niño de Portugal. Under that lordship the settlements were brought together under the single name Villanueva. In 1643 the town purchased its independence from the lordship of Valverde, paying the Count of Nieva 3,600 ducats.

After the fall of the Old Regime, the town was constituted as a municipal council under the name Villanueva de Vera, in Extremadura. From 1834 it fell within the judicial district of Jarandilla. By the 1842 census it recorded 440 households and 2,410 residents. By the mid-19th century the town had around 385 houses, and it received an entry in Pascual Madoz's monumental geographical and statistical dictionary of Spain and its overseas territories.

The entire municipality was declared a historic-artistic ensemble in 1982, and the old town retains its traditional Verata architecture well. The pentagonal, arcaded Plaza de Aniceto Marinas is the civic centrepiece. The parish church, dedicated to the Immaculada Concepción and built over several centuries, contains a churrigueresque Baroque altarpiece and sculptures of Santa Ana and San Antón by the sculptor and architect Aniceto Marinas.

Two hermitages stand in the town: the Ermita de San Antón on Calle del Barrio, and the Ermita del Cristo on Avenida de la Vera, which has been recently relocated and rebuilt.