Village
Santa Cruz de la Zarza, in the Mesa de Ocaña (Toledo), has 4,180 inhabitants (2025) and preserves remains from the second Iron Age, in the necropolis of Las Esperillas; it was an important communications hub in Roman, Visigothic and Arab times. Ceded to the Order of Santiago before 1175, it became the head of a commandery in 1242, and in 1253 the master Pelayo Pérez Correa granted it its own charter. Its name, according to local legend, recalls that the Visigothic king Recaredo, when some brambles caught fire in a street of the village, found among the flames a wooden cross that was intact. It preserves the church of San Miguel Arcángel, built around 1185 and enlarged in the 15th century, and its municipal area includes salt steppes and gypsum formations protected within the Natura 2000 Network.
Monument
The church of Santiago Apóstol of Santa Cruz de la Zarza was built over a smaller temple that the knights of the Order of Santiago had built around 1180, where prior Juan de Velasco founded two chaplaincies. The present layout, from 1559, is the work of the master builder Sebastián de Lezana, and the Barbariola family, Diego de Praves and Juan de Praves worked on its construction. It has a Latin-cross plan with three naves, and a main chapel from around 1593. It preserves three altarpieces: the central one, neoclassical, replaced the original Baroque altarpiece after the Civil War and shows a marble image of Santiago Matamoros; the side altarpieces are dedicated to Nuestra Señora del Rosario, patroness of the town, and to Jesús Nazareno. It is declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection).
Monument
The church of San Miguel Arcángel was built in 1185 outside the walls of Santa Cruz de la Zarza; in the 15th century it was a small temple, of plaster and three naves, to which Isabella the Catholic donated ornaments. It is declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection). As the town grew, this church and that of Santiago Apóstol became too small and had to be rebuilt according to the plans of Juan de Mazas, with work directed by Diego and Juan de Praves, Pedro Castaño and Juan Barbariola. The present temple, of stone and three naves, houses in its left nave the chapel of the Virgen de los Sábados, co-patroness of the town, whose image, greatly venerated, is celebrated on 15 August and dates from after 1936, since the original was destroyed in the Civil War. The main altarpiece shows a painting of San Miguel Arcángel, titular saint of the church.
Monument
The House of the Chains, next to the church of San Miguel Arcángel of Santa Cruz de la Zarza, is probably the town's oldest inn: the works date back to 1626 and were completed in 1688. It functioned as a lodging house with right of asylum and enjoyed its heyday between the 16th and 18th centuries. It owes its name to the two 1.50-metre columns that hold up a large wrought-iron chain in front of its façade, on which the royal crown of the House of Austria is displayed alongside the coat of arms of Spain and the Golden Fleece. Tradition holds that King Charles II spent the night there in 1680, which is said to have prompted the addition of this last symbol to the façade.
Monument
A gate of Mudéjar character, notable for the size of its bricks, belonging to the old medieval wall of Santa Cruz de la Zarza. It was raised, together with the fortress of La Encomienda and the walls, in the last quarter of the 12th century, and is today the only surviving vestige of the walled precinct. In 1576, under Philip II, the town was described as surrounded by old towers, four of which flanked the church of Santiago.
Monument
Santa Cruz de la Zarza (Mesa de Ocaña, Toledo) preserves seven hermitages across the town and countryside. That of the Virgen de la Paz, with one nave and a rectangular plan, stands two and a half kilometres to the west and already existed in the time of the Catholic Monarchs. That of San Antón, with 16th-century Renaissance ashlar work, is famous for the three turns the animals make on its patron saint's day. That of San Pedro, square in plan with four irregular arches, dates from the 17th century. That of San Juan stands in the municipal cemetery, where Russian pilots from the Civil War are buried. To the south, next to the N-400 road, is the Virgen de los Remedios, patroness of shepherds; to the west, Santa Lucía; and the Holy Sepulchre, carved into the rock, is the destination of the Good Friday procession.
Nature
The municipal district holds saline steppes and gypsum formations included in the Natura 2000 network, priority habitats that support a distinctive halophilic flora and steppe birdlife.
Curiosity
Settlement here goes back to the Iron Age, and Roman remains point to a site called Belcinia or Velsinia. In Visigothic times it was known as Castelforte de Valcominoso, and in 1253 Master Pelayo Pérez Correa granted it a charter.
Historical milestone
Ceded to the Order of Santiago before 1175 with confirmation from Pope Alexander III, the town was the seat of a commandery from 1242 and received a fuero of its own in 1253 from the hands of the master Pelayo Pérez Correa, the same man who conquered a good part of Extremadura.
Historical milestone
The municipality peaked in the 1950s with 6,258 inhabitants and has since lost a third of its population. The mechanisation of farming and emigration to Madrid explain the change in one of the historically most populated towns of the Mesa.
Food and drink
The cultivation of cumin was so extensive in this district that the Roman settlement came to be known as Vicus Cuminarus, the cumin road. The spice is still present in the pig-slaughter marinades and in the pulse stews of the area.