Qualla: New Castle of Manzanares el Real

New Castle of Manzanares el Real: Introduction

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit LokosuperfluoLEGOman, CC BY-SA 3.0 es. The man who started building it never saw it finished. Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, 1st Duke of the Infantado, broke ground on the New Castle of Manzanares el Real in 1475, raising a palace-fortress in granite beside the Santillana reservoir at the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama. He died before the towers were complete. His son Inigo Lopez de Mendoza finished the job, hiring the architect Juan Guas -- the same man who designed the family's Palace of the Infantado in Guadalajara -- to give the castle the kind of Isabelline Gothic ornamentation that announced to everyone in central Castile exactly how wealthy and connected the Mendozas had become.

Image: LokosuperfluoLEGOman | CC BY-SA 3.0 es

New Castle of Manzanares el Real: Contested Ground

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Pavlemadrid commons assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. Long before the Mendozas arrived, the upper reaches of the Manzanares River were fought over. Rich in pastures and forests, these lands were disputed for centuries by the rival communities of Segovia and Madrid after the Reconquista. In the fourteenth century, King John I of Cast...

Image: No machine-readable author provided. Pavlemadrid commons assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY 2.5

New Castle of Manzanares el Real: Stone, Towers, and Ambition

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Taloa, CC BY-SA 3.0. The castle is built entirely of granite, a quadrangular structure with four circular towers whose vertices are decorated with stone balls in the Isabelline Gothic style. The main hexagonal tower is the architectural highlight. A terrace ringed with machicolation and turrets crown...

Image: Taloa | CC BY-SA 3.0

New Castle of Manzanares el Real: A Century of Splendor, Then Silence

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mslg 289, CC BY-SA 3.0 es. The castle served as a palatial residence for barely a hundred years. When Inigo Lopez de Mendoza y Pimentel, the 4th Duke of the Infantado, died in 1566, the castle ceased to be inhabited. Economic problems and inheritance disputes among the Mendoza heirs drained the family's re...

Image: Mslg 289 | CC BY-SA 3.0 es

New Castle of Manzanares el Real: From Film Set to Parliament

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Héctor Esteban Menéndez, CC BY 2.0. Neglect preserved the castle in a way that use might not have. Declared a Monumento Historico-Artistico in 1931, it is today one of the best-preserved castles in the Community of Madrid. In 1961, Charlton Heston rode through its gates when the castle served as a location for the ...

Image: Héctor Esteban Menéndez | CC BY 2.0