On this route you will find the following monumental ensembles:
Monumental Main Square
The Town Hall Building
The Old Granary Building
Alarcos Palace
The Old Council Tower
The Old Market Place or Alarcos House
The Clock Tower
Municipal Assembly Hall
“Asunción” Parish Church or the “Iglesia Vieja” (old church)
The Catholic King and Queen’s arch – Saint Blas alcove (“Hornacina de San Blas”)
Balcony of the Tower (“Mirador de la Torre”)
The Jewish quarter and Medieval Christian quarter
The church of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores (called “Hospitalico” church because it was annexed to the building which used to house the old hospital of Yecla)
Municipal House of Culture
The Primitive Casino
Concha Segura Theatre
Monumental Main Square
It’s an example of reconstruction of the civic centre in the old town of Yecla at the beginning of the 16th century.
Together with the old Asunción parish church or “Iglesia Vieja”, both are urban examples of that time and serve as elements for urban planning in the expansion of the small village towards the plain.
This monumental ensemble was defined throughout the 16th century, formed by the town council, the parish church, the market place, butchers’ shops and other businesses selling selling staple products, chemist’s…etc.
The Town Hall Building
The Yecla Town Hall building was constructed in the first half of the 16th century. Its classicist façade has masonry stone work, which stands out with a double attached arch portico, leant on Tuscan columns with a fluted shaft. In the middle of both arches the coat of arms in relief of Charles 5th with a two-headed eagle can be seen. Other remarkable elements of the façade are: the balcony or corner window, with a high relief over it representing Hercules, a bearded figure, dressed in Nemean lion skin, carrying a club in the right hand and a shield with a skull on it in the left hand.
The Old Granary Building
A renaissance building constructed in the mid-16th century. It is a two-story building cut in ashlar stone, with a porch and series of five arches (four on the façade and one on the interior) resting on columns and Tuscan pilasters. Originally, the granary building was an institution responsible for regulating grain supply, becoming over the years a seed store. At the end of the 18th century, it ceased to have its original purpose, being used since the mid-nineteenth (mid-19th) century as a school of public instruction.
Alarcos Palace
It is a Renaissance house which was built in masonry stone work and ashlar stone on the corners in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. It belongs to Gil de Alarcos and Palao de Alarcos noble families. On its façade there is a coat of arms representing the “Calatrava cross” on a denticulated frieze and a window with the following words: LATEST MEMORIAE ET TUA ET INETERNUM NOM PECABIS, year 1659. The meaning of the legend and the representation of the angel as a crest seem to be destined to immortalise the memory of a deceased child.
The Old Council Tower
It was a building built in 1687 which was attached to the old town council. This tower built in rubble work is of square plant and counts on outer cover to four waters. Above the balcony, a coat of arms in relief of the city with the following inscription on its base stands out: “REIGN OF CHARLES II IN YECLA. I ORDERED THESE WEAPONS TO BE MADE, BEING COMMISSIONERS D. ANTONIO MUÑOZ VICENTE AND D. JUAN SPUCHE ORTUÑO, COUNCILORS, YEAR 1687″.
The Old Market Place or Alarcos House
Originally, the building was probably built in the 16th century and it was initially used as a market. This building was right-angled built. On its ground floor an open or continuous gallery formed by ten round arches resting on square pillars stands out. At the end of the 19th century a new market was built, being several shops set up on its ground floor.
The Clock Tower
It is a 17th-century tower attached to the west side of the granary building or “Alhorín”, with a square floor and the base built from ashlar, and brickwork with a two-bodied structure: the lower body was divided into three sections where the machinery of the clock was installed (medium section) and the bell chamber with four semi-circular arches with each small balcony (upper section); on the upper body there is a four-sided roof crowned by a small cylindrical tower with four small semi-circular arches.
Municipal Assembly Hall
The current Municipal Assembly Hall was inaugurated in 1983 after the restoration of the old market building (“la Lonja”). This building was designed by the architect Justo Millán Espinosa in 1885 as a marketplace and it was built on a plot where the chapel of the “Nieves” Virgin used to be. The restoration of this unique building respects its original structure. It has a broad nave with a rectangular ground plan covered by a gable wooden roof supported by iron trusses and cross stays and twenty wrought iron columns. On its main façade two stucco works as a tribute to Picasso by the painter from Murcia, José María Párraga, stand out.
“Asunción” Parish Church
Popularly known as “Iglesia Vieja” (Old Church), dates from the 16th century. Its construction began in 1512 and was completed forty years later. It has a rectangular ground plan and it is 40 metres long by 14,5 wide. It has a single nave in Gothic style with ribbed vault and side chapels between the buttresses.
The Gothic design of the nave is divided into five sections and the sixth one is typical of the Renaissance period of polygonal shape, on whose upper part there used to be the altarpiece, lost during the half of the 17th century. The choir and the choir loft are from the same period.
The Catholic King and Queen’s arch – Saint Blas alcove
It has been traditionally considered to be an arch commemorating the passage of Isabella I of Castile through the village of Yecla on 4th January 1488. In fact, it is a construction element which divided the village into two different urban areas: the Jewish quarter and the Christian quarter. Next to the arch there is a Neo-gothic alcove probably dating from the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th. Inside the alcove there is an image of Saint Blas. The devotion to this saint dates back to the end of the 16th century.
Balcony of the Tower
Located in the ascent to the Castle, it offers magnificent panoramic views of the town of Yecla, on which the monumental dome of the Basílica of “La Purísima” or “Iglesia Nueva” (New Church) dating from the 18th to 19th century and the majestic tower of the “Asunción” Parish Church or Old Church (“Iglesia Vieja”), from the 16th century, stand out.
The Jewish quarter and Medieval Christian quarter
The Jewish quarter was located in the town’s historic quarter. At present, it is the well-known San Blas neighbourhood. On the other side of the arch, there is the popularly known Catholic Keen’s arch, and the old urban grin of the Christian quarter from the late Middle Ages, extending around the “Iglesia Vieja” with some of its streets preserving the names of the old guilds: pottery, butcher’s and soap guilds…etc.
Hospitalico
It was an old hospital built in the middle of the 16th century which was restored in 1846. Its façade, which is flanked by two slender towers, has a neoclassical style. Inside this church, we can find profuse decorations in baroque style probably dating from the mid-18th century.
Municipal House of Culture
At present it is the Municipal House of Culture. Inside it has the Archaeological Museum “Cayetano de Mergelina” and the Museum of “El Greco’s replicas”. The Municipal Library and the Municipal Historical Archive can be found there, too. On its ground floor, a crossed stair built in 1886 according to the design by Justo Millán Espinosa, stands out.
The Primitive Casino
A building designed by the architect Justo Millán Espinosa in 1888. It has recently been restored and at present, it houses the Music School of the Asociación de Amigos de la Música of Yecla (Yecla Friends of Music Association).
Concha Segura Theatre
Constructed between 1886 and 1887, the building was located on the site where the former Casa Panera del Pósito was situated. This work was entirely done by the Local Council. In 1890 the architect Justo Millán Espinosa was in charge of remodelling the theatre façade, by adopting it a classicist style. It’s an Italian style theatre with a horseshoe-shaped plan, being its box seats distributed and supported by cast-iron columns.
