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Castelo de Castelo de Beja Cocentaina

Cocentaina Castle is built on top of the hill surrounded virtually all its summit. His remains are masonry rig, although it is completely destroyed and in some areas disappeared. S At its distinguished the remains of a small semicircular hub. A few meters from the wall of basil you can see part of a stretch of wall that could have belonged to a possible double fortress or an elbow inlet.


Inside there, though very dilapidated, a cistern that is 9, 5 x 2, 5 m and it can be seen the thickness of the plaster angles and red top These characteristics of tanks Muslims.


S On the mountain and about 300 m from the castle, there remains a small Guaita tower, known as "Torejador", circular, 4, 5 m internal diameter, 0, 75 m in thickness of the wall. Rigging is constructed of masonry with marked lime tiers of the same characteristics as those located in the basil. It also exists in the other tower Guaita O completely demolished, is smaller than that of S and is built using the same technique, measuring 1, 50 m in diameter inside, making it difficult to specify the thickness of the wall. In addition, and presiding over this set of structures, its highest point, rises the great Gothic tower.


The castle tower was built on top of the mountain. Is a square of 13, 5 m behind by 11, 2 m in height, plus ataludada base ranging from 2 and 4 m. Every building has a great uniformity, built in the interior and exterior masonry reinforced masonry tiered seating in the corners. Completes the whole body, now treeless, possibly flown and supported on a ledge or amatacanada cited in the style of the existing towers of the Palace of the villa.
Inside space is distributed on two floors unified by a large open atrium of ending in the tank. The rest occupied by three rooms per floor. The rooms are distributed in an "L", with barrel vaults smaller (NE) and a flat roof on wood paneling, has now disappeared, the larger rectangular rooms (Noon). Surely they communicated through wooden stairs, now disappeared. The openings are of masonry, the main gate located in the NE facade, is arch and apainelado inside. The rooms on the first floor are rectangular slits carved stonework and windows above marked with bows running into geminate, semicircular, with soffit molding and mullioned disappeared.


The archaeological remains found in the castle confirm an Islamic origin of the X-XI centuries, coinciding with the terms of the Arab sources speak of "hisn" or Cocentaina castle, the castle remained a fortress of the city that spread to his feet until it was conquered by the Aragonese troops in the middle of the thirteenth century. With the arrival of Admiral Roger de Lauria, the King James II granted the September 13, 1291 the town and castle of Cocentaina. According to some authors, its construction took place in early fourteenth century, commissioned the design by an Italian architect, certainly pre-Gothic features of its architecture: arches germinated, and the use of the stalls, we reminiscent of the triangular tower Castillo de la Mola Novelda, which also denotes the lack of defensive elements specific to the use of gunpowder, for all these reasons, we believe that this tower must have been built in the first half of the fourteenth century.

(as Rafael Azaur and Francisco J. Navarro CASTLES OF ALICANTE)