Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Arroyo de la Encomienda

What to see and do in Arroyo de la Encomienda (Campiña del Pisuerga, Valladolid): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Activities · 1 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Arroyo de la Encomienda

The botanical garden of Arroyo 500 m
Church of San Juan Evangelista de Arroyo 650 m

Towns near Arroyo de la Encomienda

What to see in Simancas 3.8 km · 6 places
What to see in Zaratán 5.3 km · 5 places
What to see in Ciguñuela 6.2 km · 3 places
What to see in Valladolid 6.8 km · 8 places
What to see in Laguna de Duero 7.1 km · 1 place
What to see in Geria 8 km · 4 places
What to see in La Cistérniga 8.9 km · 1 place
What to see in Viana de Cega 9.5 km · 1 place

Spain › Castile and León › Valladolid › Campiña del Pisuerga › Arroyo de la Encomienda

What to see and do in Arroyo de la Encomienda

Arroyo de la Encomienda
Village
Arroyo de la Encomienda is a municipality of more than 22,000 inhabitants next to Valladolid, only eight kilometres from its centre, spread across eight neighbourhoods around the river Pisuerga and the moorlands of the Torozos hills. It owes its name to the Order of St John's lordship of the Encomienda de Wamba, established in 1140 when the infanta Sancha Raimúndez donated the Mozarab monastery of Santa María de Wamba to the Order of St John of Jerusalem; the lordship lasted until the Mendizábal disentailment of 1836. It preserves the Romanesque church of San Juan Evangelista, built by the Hospitallers in the 12th century. From barely 13 residents in the 18th century, it grew from 3,635 inhabitants in the year 2000 to 12,758 in 2010, becoming the second most populous municipality in the province.
Church of San Juan Evangelista de Arroyo
Monument
The church of San Juan Evangelista in Arroyo de la Encomienda, also known as San Juan Ante Portam Latinam, is a Romanesque church built in the 12th century, then belonging to the Encomienda de los Caballeros Hospitalarios of the Order of San Juan de Jerusalén de Wamba. Small in size, it is notable for its doorway, with six round-arched archivolts, and the semicircular apse that forms the altar inside. It was restored in 1876 by the architect Jerónimo Ortiz de Urbina, a fellow student of Demetrio de los Ríos and Juan de Madrazo and, like them, influenced by the ideas of Viollet-le-Duc; the intervention is today a characteristic example of mid-19th-century restoration criteria in Spain. It is the municipality's main medieval remain. In the Monasterio district an arch from the vanished church of San Pedro, dating from 1150, also survives.
The growth of Arroyo de la Encomienda
Curiosity
In the middle of the nineteenth century the place had seventy-one inhabitants. It went from 3,635 residents in the year 2000 to close to 22,800 in 2025, becoming the second most populated municipality in the province.
The botanical garden of Arroyo
Activity
Opened in 2007, it is one of the leading green spaces of the alfoz of Valladolid and arranges by collections the flora of the Duero basin in a municipality that in two decades has multiplied by six.
The donation of the commandery of Wamba
Historical milestone
The Encomienda of Wamba was a commandery of the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, based at the Mozarabic monastery of Santa María de Wamba (Valladolid), in the Montes Torozos district. The infanta Sancha Raimúndez, sister of King Alfonso VII, donated the monastery and its possessions to the Hospitallers on 10 June 1140, giving rise to one of the leading Hospitaller commanderies north of the Sistema Central mountains. At its greatest extent, the lordship comprised, besides Wamba, the Valladolid possessions of Arroyo de la Encomienda, Castrodeza, Adalia and, until the 14th century, San Miguel del Pino; it was from this holding that the present-day municipality of Arroyo de la Encomienda took its name, which it kept until Mendizábal's disentailment, in 1836, extinguished it and transferred its assets to the State.