Logbook · 3 places

What to see and do in Villacastín

What to see and do in Villacastín (Comunidad de Ciudad y Tierra de Segovia, Segovia): 3 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Historical milestones

Towns near Villacastín

Spain › Castile and León › Segovia › Comunidad de Ciudad y Tierra de Segovia › Villacastín

What to see and do in Villacastín

Villacastín
Village
Villacastín is a town in the Community of City and Land of Segovia, situated 36 kilometres from the capital and at 1,096 metres above sea level, between the sierra de Guadarrama and the Segovian plateau. Its name, related to Castilla, harks back to Castrum, a fortified camp, and recalls the frontier condition the place held in the 11th century, hence the two castles on its coat of arms. In July 939 the Umayyad army of Abd al-Rahmán III crossed the frontier here and laid waste to the territory as far as Simancas, where it was defeated. It lived on transhumance, with wool-washing sites and the Las Merinas bridge at Campo Azálvaro, and preserves the monumental church of San Sebastián, begun in 1529 and known as the cathedral of the Sierra. It has about 1,567 inhabitants.
The cathedral of the Sierra
Monument
The church of San Sebastián was begun in 1529 with the revenues of the Mesta and completed in the seventeenth century: a hall plan of three naves of similar height, star ribbed vaults and the funerary chapel of the Mexía family. It was declared a Monumento Nacional (Spain's heritage designation in force until 1931) in 1944.
Villacastín, wool capital of the Mesta
Historical milestone
During the sixteenth century Villacastín was one of the most important producing centres of the Mesta, and with the wealth of wool it paid for a church so outsized for its scale that the comarca christened it the cathedral of the Sierra.