Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Arroyomolinos

What to see and do in Arroyomolinos (Comarca Sur, Madrid): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Arroyomolinos

Tower of Arroyomolinos 150 m
Mills of the Combos stream 2.4 km

Towns near Arroyomolinos

What to see in Moraleja de Enmedio 5.8 km · 4 places
What to see in Batres 6.6 km · 6 places
What to see in El Álamo 7.2 km · 5 places
What to see in Serranillos del Valle 7.7 km · 3 places
What to see in Humanes de Madrid 8 km · 4 places
What to see in Griñón 8 km · 6 places
What to see in Navalcarnero 8.1 km · 18 places
What to see in Móstoles 8.4 km · 6 places

Spain › Community of Madrid › Comarca Sur › Arroyomolinos

What to see and do in Arroyomolinos

Arroyomolinos
Village
Arroyomolinos is a municipality in the Community of Madrid, located in the southwest of the region and partly included in the Regional Park of the Middle Guadarrama River; it borders Móstoles, Navalcarnero and Moraleja de Enmedio. It owes its name to the mills that once stood on the banks of the Combos stream, of which traces still remain; its first documented name was Chozas Arroyo de Molinos. The land, hemmed in around this stream and its tributaries, has drops of up to 70 meters between the old town center and the newer neighborhoods. It has multiplied its population tenfold since 1996, to around 38,000 inhabitants, and preserves the Torreón del Pan, raised around 1476 bearing the coats of arms of the Catholic Monarchs and later used as a granary and dovecote.
Tower of Arroyomolinos
Monument
The Torreón de Arroyomolinos, the only standing remnant of the so-called Castillo del Pan, is a late-medieval Gothic tower built around 1476, in the 1470s, as a seigneurial tower, in the historic centre, near the plaza Mayor. Five storeys high, square in plan with rounded corners and built in brick on stone foundations, it is notable for its eight corner turrets, two on each corner, and it bears resemblances to the torreón de Pinto and to the Torre del Homenaje of the castle of La Mota, in Medina del Campo. Also known as the torre del Pan, it was converted in the 19th and 20th centuries into a granary and dovecote, with more than four thousand nests installed on its upper floors. Restored in the early 21st century, it is today part of the Red de Yacimientos Visitables de la Comunidad de Madrid.
Mills of the Combos stream
Monument
The stream once drove seven mills that gave the village its name, six flour mills and one fulling mill; the ones that survive, of Mudéjar construction and probably of Islamic origin, were built between the 14th and 15th centuries and were still grinding in the 19th century. The arroyo de los Combos itself, which also flows through Móstoles and Moraleja de Enmedio before running into the Guadarrama, retains pine woods on its banks that contrast with the deforestation of the surrounding area; in the past its course was also used for irrigation, with a small dam between the municipalities of Móstoles and Arroyomolinos.
Arroyomolinos droving trail
Nature
A drovers' road that comes down from the River Guadarrama towards Móstoles following the course of the Combos stream; its nearly seven kilometres inside the district link the archaeological remains of medieval mills with recreation areas.
The assault of Juan de Oviedo
Historical milestone
Juan de Oviedo seized the place around 1476 and had a tower raised to dominate it. Gonzalo Chacón, steward of Isabella the Catholic, laid siege to it that same year and ended up stamping his coat of arms on the fabric.