Castle of Ampudia (Palencia)

Eastern view of the castle

Ampudia Castle is a medieval fortress built between 1461 and 1488 by García López de Ayala, Lord of Ayala and Salvatierra and son of Pedro García de Herrera, the first holder of the Ampudia estate. García's successor, Pedro Ayala y Rojas, embraced the comunero cause, leading to the armed conflict known as the Battle of Ampudia between supporters of Emperor Charles I of Spain and troops led by Bishop Antonio de Acuña. In 1528, the castle housed the sons of the French monarch Francis I as hostages after the Battle of Pavia. It is an early example of a Castilian stately castle-palace, a jewel of the region's civil architecture, and is in magnificent condition following the careful restoration undertaken in the 1960s by Eugenio Fontaneda. The building has a trapezoidal floor plan, turrets at the corners, the southwest one corresponding to the homage tower, and a moat spanned by a drawbridge. It is surrounded by a barbican wall with cylindrical towers. The parade ground has three porticoed galleries, each three stories high, with segmental arcades, the upper story being more modest.

Staircase leading to the bridge at the entrance to the castle

Upper platform of the stone bridge

Barbican towers that protected access to the castle

Entrance door and drawbridge of the castle

Detail of the battlements with their loopholes indoor the outer wall

Castle of Benal (León)

South view of the castle

The castle of Benal (also known as Benar castle, Beñal castle, or Venal castle) is an Omaña fortress located in the town of El Castillo, part of the municipality of Riello in the province of León. It has a triangular layout, probably dictated by the topography of the hill on which it sits. The homage tower and some walls still remain. Built on an ancient Roman fort, it appears as Benal fort in a 1366 document, by which King Henry II of Trastámara granted it to Juan González Bazán. Nine years later, it passed into the possession of Diego Fernández Quiñones by his father's will, making it the first patrimonial fortress of the Quiñones family.