Castillo de Pambre
The Castillo de Pambre , in Galician Castelo de Pambre , is a medieval castle on the outskirts of the village of Pambre, near Palas de Rei , in the Galician province of Lugo . It is located on a rock above the Río Pambre .
The castle is one of the best examples of medieval military architecture in Galicia and one of the few that survived the Irmandine Revolt undamaged.
history
A local legend tells that the walls of this castle were miraculously built in one night. In fact, it was built around 1375 by the Galician nobleman Gonzalo Ozores de Ulloa.
Before the fortress was built, the area around the castle was the scene of fighting between Peter the Cruel and Henry of Trastamara for many years . Here, on the banks of the Pambre, the battle between Fernando Ruiz de Castro, partisan of Peter who was murdered in Montiel , and Heinrich's general and Adelantado major , Pedro Ruiz Sarmiento, took place. De Castro and his troops were defeated and he had to flee to Portugal , later to England , where he finally died.
Don Gonzalo was also part of Peter the Cruel and paid for his loyalty to the later loser with a few years in prison. Freed again, he had to fight the Seixas family, who incorporated the Ulloas' lands into their domain. During these battles he captured the castles of Curbián and San Paio de Narla. Shortly before the end of the conflict that was victorious for him, he had the Castillo de Pambre built. It later became the scene of the fighting between the Galician nobility and the Archbishop of Santiago, Alonso III. de Fonseca .
Pambre Castle is one of the few Galician feudal fortresses that were not destroyed during the Irmandine Revolt . The then lord of the castle, Sancho Sánchez de Ulloa, tried to negotiate with the rebels at a historic meeting in Melide . They asked him to hand over the castle to the Irminian troops. Ulloa feared for his life and sought his salvation in flight. He probably saved the Castillo de Pambre, which was not subsequently stormed by the Irmandiños. The exact reasons why the castle was spared are not known.
In the 15th century, the castle was used not only for military purposes but also - due to its location on an inevitable part of the road - as a toll station to collect tolls . In 1484 Pambre passed into the possession of the Count of Monterrei , later to the Alba family. In 1895 the 16th Duke of Alba sold the castle, the associated goods and other buildings to Xosé Soto, who lived in Palas de Rei, for 27,000 pesetas . In 1912 Manuel Moreiras and Manuel García Blanco from Palas de Rei bought the property, after another change of ownership, the Castillo de Pambre now belongs to Manuel Taboada Fernández, Count of Borraxeiros.
After the castle was kept inaccessible to the public by the private owners and partly leased as an animal enclosure, it has been open to the public since June 1, 2011 and was bought by the regional government of Xunta de Galicia in 2011 .
Description of the castle
The castle has a square base with four towers and a centrally located keep . It is surrounded by an outer wall, inside which there is also a chapel and a hearing aid . A tombstone also located here for the children of the castle captain Capitán Payo Varela (from 1620) has been incorporated into the archaeological museum of the province of Lugo .
The main material of the castle is the locally occurring granite , the processing was carried out as quarry stone and ashlar masonry .
Outer wall
The outer wall reproduces the uneven terrain and is 2.5 m to 5 m thick (gate area). Some earth was poured behind the wall, so that the terrain inside is relatively flat. This inner area can be entered through a west-facing gate, which is decorated with the coat of arms of the Ulloas. Diametrically opposite to the gate, the outer wall is reinforced by a smaller tower with a side gate .
chapel
To the right of the entrance is the San Pedro chapel , built in the Romanesque style at the end of the 12th century . The floor area is 42 m², the abside is rectangular. The arched field of the main door rests on corbels that are pyramid-shaped on the left and decorated with a rosette of four leaves on the right . The south door is designed with a Romanesque round arch. The chapel was previously the parish church of the village and belonged to the monastery of San Xulián y Basilisa de Samos . The writer Antonio López Ferreiro had a scene from his novel O Castelo de Pambre played here, and the chapel is currently used as a storage room.
Inner wall and keep
The actual castle wall has a tower at the intersection of the sides. The towers, like the castle wall, are reinforced with triangular battlements where they still exist . The gate is provided with a round arch, in the keystone the family coat of arms of the Ulloas (five fields, in a chessboard arrangement) is worked. The keep is in the center of the castle. The base is square with a side length of 11 m. The three floors are structured as follows: The basement has no window openings, there is a Romanesque door at a height of five meters, there are traces here that suggest a connection via a drawbridge to the wall. The next floor also measures five meters. There is a Romanesque twin window on the top floor, the platform is crenellated.
Web links
- Turgalicia / Castillo de Pambre (Spanish)
- Images of Castillo de Pambre on Magicspain
- Sketch of the local situation
Coordinates: 42 ° 51 ′ 34.9 " N , 7 ° 56 ′ 53.7" W.