Torre de Mengíbar

Plaza la Constitución, 9. 23620, Mengíbar How to get

The Torre de Mengíbar is the keep of the old castle of Mengíbar, in the province of Jaén, being the only thing that has been preserved from said castle. It is located in the old town of said town. It was restored in 1982.2

This tower is the only thing left standing of the castle. It measures 13.70 meters on a side and has a square base. Even the parapet of the terrace was 25.50 meters high. The entrance faces East. It is 1.90 meters high. Through it there is access to a square room covered with a brick vaulted ceiling. A little off-center on the ground, a water well opens in the cistern that is circular, dug into the rock.

Through a staircase embedded in the north and west walls, you access the first floor that encloses a square room measuring 7.45 meters on each side. It is covered with a vault of equal bricks, slightly pointed, which support its profiles on two pointed arches, made of stone and brick. These are based on the North and South walls. The light is received from open loopholes in the center of each wall. Embedded in the south wall, the staircase that goes to the second floor ascends. It is identical in arrangement to the first, although the arches are supported by the east and west walls. In the east wall there is a balcony, previously amatacanado, that guarded the entrance of the tower that is in its vertical. This balcony was accessed by two narrow lintel corridors that have a false pointed brick arch inside.

From the second floor the terrace is accessed by a staircase embedded in the west wall.

On the ground floor of the first floor, near the corners, embedded in the ground, there are four large ceramic jars 1.20 meters deep. They are embedded in the thickness of the underlying vault, which is the roof of the ground floor. On the second floor there are four other jars, smaller than the previous ones. All of them were used to store grains or liquids.

In the corners of the tower terrace there are dogs that supported amatacanados balconies.