Village
Talamanca de Jarama is a town of about 4,600 inhabitants in the north of Madrid, bordering Castilla-La Mancha, on the middle stretch of the río Jarama. It was an Andalusi stronghold of the Middle March until the conquest by Alfonso VI, and its urban centre, divided by the Valdejudíos stream into the districts of the old stronghold and the Arrabal, preserves a fully walled layout, characteristic of medieval Castile. It has five monuments declared bien de interés cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), among them the Romanesque apse of San Juan Bautista and the Roman bridge over the Caz stream, which appears on its coat of arms. Many noble buildings retain their 17th-century appearance, which has made Talamanca the region's film capital, with more than 130 films shot there up to 2009.
Monument
Fortified enclosure built around the year 860 by order of the emir Muhammad I to watch over the Middle March, with concentric masonry walls that were reinforced in the Christian period between the 13th and 14th centuries. It is declared a Bien de Interés Cultural.
Monument
Gate in the Andalusi walled perimeter, on Calle Arco, built in masonry with brick courses. Its present round arch replaced a Mudéjar horseshoe arch and it preserves, set into it, a limestone plaque with a late Roman anthropomorphic bas-relief.
Monument
A bridge over the Caz stream of Roman origin, dating from between the 1st and 2nd centuries, much rebuilt in medieval times. Declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 1997, it appears on the municipal coat of arms as the emblem of the ford that gave the town its strategic importance. It served a defensive function between the 9th and 10th centuries, integrated into the system of watchtowers and military roads with which the Muslims protected the Marca Media; after the Christian conquest, in the early 11th century, it became a compulsory crossing on the route to Toledo, and the Archbishopric of Toledo collected a toll from those who crossed it. Oriented north to south, it consists of five segmental and basket-handle arches irregularly spaced; the Jarama, which used to flow beneath it, now runs alongside the bridge after its course shifted eastward.
Monument
The church of San Juan Bautista in Talamanca de Jarama, declared a historic-artistic monument on 3 June 1931, was built in the late 12th or early 13th century in Romanesque style; from that original building the apse survives unaltered, the element of greatest artistic interest in the whole, clearly influenced by the Romanesque of Segovia even though the parish depended on the Archbishopric of Toledo. The main body, demolished and rebuilt in the 16th century in Renaissance taste, has three naves separated by two large arches, a classicist portal in Herrerian style and a wooden mudéjar coffered ceiling; it also holds two 15th-century holy-water fonts and a Roman funerary stele. It is the only one of the town's five medieval churches still in use.
Monument
Popularly known as El Morabito and formerly called the ermita de San Nicolás, it is the sole remnant of a church from the mid-13th century, from a period of prosperity for Talamanca de Jarama, then the head of a large ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Toledo. It is built in Castilian-Leonese mudéjar, or brick Romanesque, a style that arrived from León via Zamora, Salamanca, Valladolid, Ávila and Segovia. It stands isolated among the houses, with a semicircular plan and a straight section of the old presbytery, in masonry faced with brick; the blind arcades doubled over three storeys on the exterior stand out. Excavations in the square have uncovered pre-Roman and Roman remains, as well as traces of an earlier apse. Declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), a witness to the town's medieval past.
Curiosity
In Andalusi Talamanca there was a school of Quranic law from which Umar al-Talamankí emerged, who lived between 951 and 1038 and gained renown in al-Andalus. The town was then a stronghold on the route linking Córdoba, Toledo and Zaragoza.
Nature
The middle stretch of the Jarama and the Galga stream form here a riverside wood of willows and poplars included in the protected area of the Jarama and Henares river basins, where white storks, mallards and birds of prey such as the Montagu's harrier breed.
Monument
A plain baroque building on a square plan raised in the 17th century on the street that bears its name; listed as a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), it is now privately owned and has often served as a location for film shoots.
Historical milestone
The emir Muhammad I ordered a stronghold to be raised before the year 860 to watch over the Somosierra pass. In the 11th century the villa had a school of Koranic jurisprudence that came to rival those of Córdoba and Toledo.
Historical milestone
The king took the stronghold during the campaign that gave him Toledo and allowed the Muslims who paid tribute to remain. In 1091 he ceded the villa to the church of Toledo and Talamanca became the head of a comunidad de villa y tierra.