Village
Villargordo del Cabriel is a municipality of La Plana de Utiel-Requena, at the western end of Valencia, separated from Cuenca by the río Cabriel, dammed to the north-west at the embalse de Contreras and which to the south-west flows within the Hoces del Cabriel Natural Park. The village stands on a small hill, at 864 metres above sea level, where the fields of the plateau end and the sierra del Rubial begins, whose peak, the Moluengo, reaches 1,040 metres. The settlement grew up around the parish church, and its oldest streets coincide with the old royal road to Utiel, which descends to the puente del Pajazo, the oldest bridge across the Cabriel, from the 15th and 16th centuries. It has 588 inhabitants (INE 2025).
Nature
The Cabriel is the main tributary of the Júcar, 277.6 kilometres long; it rises at the Barranco del Agua, in the Montes Universales of Teruel, and flows through Cuenca, Albacete and Valencia. In its final stretch it marks the border between the provinces of Cuenca and Valencia, and between Albacete and Valencia, before entering the comarca of La Plana de Utiel-Requena, on the border with Castilla-La Mancha. Between Minglanilla and Villargordo del Cabriel lies the Contreras reservoir, the most important on its course; downstream, the river enters the Hoces del Cabriel natural park, after which it joins the Júcar at Cofrentes. Its crystal-clear waters and numerous gorges have prompted the project to declare the area a Biosphere Reserve.
Nature
The Hoces del Cabriel Natural Park is a protected natural area covering 31,446 hectares in the province of Valencia, spread across the municipalities of Villargordo del Cabriel, Venta del Moro and Requena, in the Requena-Utiel comarca. It was declared by the Valencian Government on 17 June 2005 and protects the course of the Cabriel River, which along its 220 kilometres marks the boundary with Castilla-La Mancha; the banks on the Cuenca and Albacete side hold the status of nature reserve under the same name. Both areas form part of the Cabriel Valley Biosphere Reserve, declared by UNESCO on 19 June 2019, and together they make up the largest protected area in the whole of the Comunitat Valenciana.
Monument
An 18th-century parish church located in the small historic centre of Villargordo del Cabriel, whose urban layout has Arab reminiscences. Built in neoclassical style and later enlarged, the current square bell tower was raised over its original bell-gable, and the crossing is covered by a dome on a ring with a lantern. Its interior, a single nave with five bays, preserves an 18th-century image of Saint Cecilia and a 19th-century canvas of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
Monument
Bridge of Roman origin rebuilt in the 16th century over the river Cabriel, in the municipal district of Villargordo del Cabriel, within the Hoces del Cabriel Natural Park.
Nature
The Contreras reservoir lies between Villargordo del Cabriel, in the province of Valencia, and the Cuenca municipalities of La Pesquera, Mira, Enguídanos and Minglanilla, at the confluence of the Cabriel and Guadazaón rivers. Built in 1972, it covers 2,710 hectares with a maximum capacity of 943 cubic hectometres and a dam 129 metres high; it is used to generate power and to supply Valencia with drinking water via the Júcar-Turia canal. Because of the permeability of the rock it rests on, it rarely exceeds 20% of its capacity, which is why a second dam was built 500 metres to the west. Downstream stands the Puente de Contreras, the work of the engineer Lucio del Valle, built in the mid-19th century, between 1845 and 1851.
Monument
Remains of defensive trenches from the Peninsular War preserved in the municipal district of Villargordo del Cabriel, such as the one on the Camino de Peñas Blancas and the one at Contreras.
Monument
The Puente de Contreras crosses the canyon of the river Cabriel between Villargordo del Cabriel and Minglanilla, already in Castilla-La Mancha. It was built between 1845 and 1851 by the engineer Lucio del Valle, who, to overcome the difference in level, also laid out a zigzag road, the Puerto de Contreras. It is a stone bridge 86.80 metres long and 6.40 metres wide at the central span, widening to 8.90 metres at the approach spans; it has seven semicircular arches, with a maximum height of 28 metres and a span of 16.7 metres for the central arch and 8 metres for the three on each side. With the construction of the Contreras reservoir in the 1970s, just upstream, and of the N-3 viaduct over the dam, the bridge was relegated to a secondary role.
Monument
The optical telegraph tower of Villargordo del Cabriel, restored in 2025, was part of the Madrid-Valencia line of the optical telegraph, built between 1848 and 1849 to a design by Mathé and put into service a year later with thirty towers. Messages could travel the whole line, from the first tower to the last, in only thirty minutes; the Madrid end was in the customs building and the Valencia end in the convent of Saint Francis. The tower, 7.65 metres high, has been a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) since 2011 and today forms part of the cultural tourism routes of Tierra Bobal.
Curiosity
Villargordo del Cabriel (La Plana de Utiel-Requena, Valencia) gained its municipal independence from Requena in 1747 after the payment of 90,000 reales. Until then the village was known as Villargordo de Requena, a name that reflected its subordinate status; independence brought with it the change of name to its current form, Villargordo del Cabriel.