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Church of Santa María de Villena

Villena, L'Alt Vinalopó, Alicante

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Church of Santa María de Villena

Monument · Villena, L'Alt Vinalopó, Alicante

Church in Villena situated next to the castle, on the site where a mosque probably stood during the Muslim period. The present-day building, also known as the church of the Rabal, was erected in the 16th century in Valencian Gothic style, with a single nave that appears to become three where the interior buttresses are pierced, and a polygonal apse without an ambulatory. Its tower, freestanding along two thirds of its perimeter, is comparable to that of the neighbouring church of Santiago, and one of its bells, known as the Campanica de la Virgen, came from the former Torre del Orejón. In 1575 it was still under construction and stood outside the town walls. Burned during the Spanish Civil War, its presbytery was rebuilt in 1948 imitating a ribbed vault.

Photo: Danielby (Wikimedia Commons) (CC BY-SA 2.5)

What to see and do in Villena