New Castle of Manzanares el Real (Castillo nuevo de Manzanares el Real) Manzanares el Real, Spain

The New Castle of Manzanares el Real, also known as Castle of los Mendoza, is a palace-fortress erected in the 15th century in the town of Manzanares el Real (Community of Madrid, Spain), next to the reservoir of Santillana at the foot of Sierra de Guadarrama. Its construction began in 1475 on a Romanesque-Mudéjar hermitage and today is one of the best preserved castles of the Community of Madrid.

It was raised on the river Manzanares, as a residential palace of the House of Mendoza, in the vicinity of an ancient fortress, abandoned once built the new building. The castle now houses a museum of the Spanish castles and hosts a collection of tapestries. It was declared a Monumento Histórico-Artístico in 1931. Is owned by the Duchy of the Infantado, but its management and use correspond to the Community of Madrid. The castle, quadrangular, is constructed entirely of granite stone. It has four circular towers. In its vertices are decorated with balls of Isabelline Gothic style. Highlights the main tower of hexagonal form. The building is topped by a terrace with machicolation and turrets. It consists of a rectangular courtyard with porticos and two galleries on octagonal columns. The Gothic gallery on the first floor is considered the most beautiful of Spanish military architecture. On the southern chemin de ronde the gallery is flaming trace on parapets decorated using diamond. The whole castle is surrounded by a barbican, which loopholes are carved in low relief the cross of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, the title he enjoyed Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza. Other defensive elements of the building are its pockets. The castle is arranged on six floors, plus a basement: ground floor, mezzanine first, main floor, mezzanine second, upper gallery and gallery of covers. The entrance door is framed in two buckets, presents an arch.

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