Uclés Monastery

Phone: 969 135 058

Fax: 969135052

Email: monasterio@monasteriodeucle...

Website: www.monasteriodeucles.com

Type of monument

Religious Architecture

History

The monastery passed through different historical incarnations, between the 19th and 20th centuries it served as a school, novitiate, hospital, jail and novitiate. It currently houses the Santiago Apóstol Seminario Menor.

It was used as a set for the movie "El Capitán Alatriste" starring Viggo Mortensen, and based on a novel by Arturo Pérez Reverte.

Period

17th Century.

Art style

Baroque

Special trips

The monastery is found inside the Uclés Fortress (17th century) that was extremely grandiose: occupying a thousand square kilometres of ground, surrounded by walls, bastions, buttresses and crenellated towers.

How to get there

Road transport

Uclés Monastery is built over a Gothic church. It has a square floor plan around a central patio and a two-storey cloister with ten openings on each side, built of square-based pillars and semicircular arches; the walkway is covered with a barrel vault with lunettes and stone outlines on the arches, outlined in stone, support the upper floor, highlighted with post and lintel alcove, that follows the same pattern as the floor below, decorated with plant motifs with beading and metalwork; in the centre of the patio there is a limestone water feature with baroque decoration, with a great shield bearing the royal coat of arms.

The East wing of the building is plateresque, built between 1530-50, with iron balconies and windows, with horn formations, decorated with shells and bas-relief carvings, repeating the motif of the Santiago cross.
Inside there is an extraordinary staircase under an elliptical dome on supports decorated with shells. The Sacristy is plateresque, with interlaced Gothic ceilings, and the Refectory still has a particularly high quality coffered ceiling, with hexagonal caisson decorations, combining plant motifs and medallions with depictions of what seems to be all the grand masters of the Order of Santiago.

The West wing was built in the 17th century, in the Herrerian style, and has three floors. The South wing, built in the 18th century, with similar Herrerian characteristics as the West wing, has a great Churrigueresque doorway, made in 1735 and attributed to the work of Pedro Ribera, and indebted to the architect Francisco de Mora.

Also declared a Monument, the Church was erected in the 16th and 17th centuries by Francisco de Mora, based on designs by Gaspar de Vega. (See the description of the church in the Guide)

Timetables

Visits are free, but, depending on availability, there is the possibility of guided tours by prior arrangement.
Summertime: 10am to 6pm.
Wintertime: 10am to 8pm.
Closed: 25th, 31st December and 1st January.

Fees

Admission: €3
Groups (20 people or more): €2