Architecture

It has a core of the eleventh century Muslim period, which would undergo a first reform in the twelfth century when the Ebro Valley was conquered by the Kingdom of Aragon. And a second one in the 14th century, after the War of the Two Peters, when the tower was seriously affected by the Castilian attacks. For what after the warlike conflict it was necessary to intervene seriously in it, extending and reforming. It has a rectangular floor plan measuring 6 meters by 8 meters and 20 meters high. It is catalogued as an Asset of Cultural Interest. Built in ashlar masonry, it has 3 useful levels.

The standard Muslim tower had a smaller floor plan than the present one. On the west façade there is a line in the ashlars that marks the original dimensions. On the two exterior facades there are numerous reuse of Roman ashlars, while on the interior face that faces the interior of the palace, these ashlars are observed in the outermost part, to then give way to the original Muslim macro ashlars, larger, more irregular, joined with more mortar and more deteriorated.

The 14th century enlargement was made with ashlars of a different manufacture from the initial ones, most of them of Roman origin and probably coming from a nearby construction. They are easy to distinguish because they have a central hole and are perfectly worked.

The tower is solid in the first 4 meters of height, currently has a round arch opening in brick at the base that responds to an unsuccessful attempt in modern times to make it accessible from ground level.

On the second floor there is a room that would be the cellar. This space is closed with a barrel vault made of brick that has two windows-saeteras. This room was accessed from the upper room through a trap door that is still preserved and a rope ladder.

There are few examples of 15th century architecture in Aragon as important and significant as the palace that would serve as the abbey house of the Monastery of Santa María de Veruela.

It was built at the end of the 14th century on the site where the medieval castle stood. It was joined to the tower at an early stage by a passage that forced the opening of a door in the first level of the tower (the bódega). This passage would communicate with the palatial dependencies of the new abbey house.

This building would be rectangular, with a brick façade and pointed entrance arch. On the first floor there was a second perpendicular building with a triple arcade of semicircular arches that is still preserved. And on the second floor a large hall with two windows, one of them with an ogee arch, to the east.

In the 15th century, the palace space was renovated, the two windows on the second floor were condemned, the floor slab of the hall on that floor was lowered and an ogee arch door was opened.

The space was enlarged with the creation of a courtyard with a gallery, two doors are preserved in this space, a splendid ogee that today communicates with the house of Vicenta Luna, but that originally could communicate with important stay and another rectangular lintel that although it is currently blinded, it managed to recover.

It is a Renaissance gallery from the time of the Catholic Monarchs, with two semicircular arches on the ground floor and another lowered arch from a previous period. And on the second floor arches with octagonal columns. On the third floor there are only three linteled openings.

All these elements make the palace one of the best examples of civil architecture of the second half of the 15th century in Aragon.

In the 16th century the palace was enlarged, it was given a new brick façade with a gallery of arches and a chapel was created in the Renaissance gallery next to the medieval tower. This chapel would be a space with an almost square floor plan and with pictorial decoration of which several canvases have been recovered. In this same century the main facade suffers a deterioration, it is intervened in an important way in her, for that reason the facade presents two different brick factories and two galleries of completely differentiated arches.

At this historical moment the castle-palace complex of the Abbots of Veruela would be much larger than the present one, with several outbuildings for production work. In the first garden area an archaeological excavation was carried out, revealing a kiln and abundant ceramic material, which would have been the kiln where the tiles that today decorate the rooms of the Monastery of Veruela were produced. In the annex building (which has recently been joined to the complex) a wine press with two presses has been discovered, which represents a very important production of wine. This building has graffiti and dates on its walls that date it to the 16th-17th centuries. In the next house, today owned by some neighbors of the village, a refrigerator is practically preserved, which implies that the whole complex was an important productive space of different products by the monastery of Veruela.

In the 17th century, they built a new chapel, with a double star vault, in the space above the access door to the palace. Soon after, the door that communicated this second chapel with the tower (today reopened) is condemned, and a new access is opened in the first chapel, which is no longer used as such and in the twentieth century is transformed into a bathroom, damaging the paintings. With the ashlars that were removed to open the new door, the other one was blinded. One of these ashlars still preserves the polychrome and is currently on display.