Castle of the Week 3 - Castillo de Guadamur
Guadamur is very close to the moorish city of
Toledo in central Spain. It was built on a hill overlooking the
town in the late 15th century by Don Pedro Lopez de Ayala (who
became the Count of Fuensalida in 1470) and was much beloved by
members of the Castilian Royal Family. Philip the Fair and
Princess Joanna spent their honeymoon there and Charles V retired
there to mourn his wife, the Empress Isabella.
It was burned down by French invaders in 1809 and remained a ruin
until 1887 when it was restored by the Count of Asalto, a member
of an old Catalan family remaining true to its original 15th
century design. It was plundered during the Spanish Civil War of
1936 but has, once again, been restored and was declared a
historical monument in 1964.
The castle is square but stepped with round
towers at each corner and is surrounded by a wide moat with a
drawbridge. There are 4 ‘steps’ with a low outer
wall, then the main body and towers, then the keep, then the
principal tower on one corner of the keep with more turrets
sitting on decorative arches. It’s likely that the
different levels 
were built at different times as,
because of the constraint of the outer walls, the only expansion
could be upwards. The square keep has 6 round towers on the top
and the outer wall alternates round corner towers and triangular
buttresses. There are huge coats of arms along the walls and many
windows with square arches.
Written by GillB* . Colour photo courtesy of Castles of the World
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