Quintanar del Rey

Location

It is the last municipality in the Province of Cuenca through which the N-III passes by the border with the Province of Albacete. It lies between Villanueva de la Jara and Tarazona de la Mancha.

How to get there

Road transport

This is an industrial and agricultural town which specialises in the production of good wine and mushrooms; the municipality is home of the headquarters of the Mushroom Research Centre.
In the middle 16th century Quintanar del Rey was a village which was a dependent of Villanueva de la Jara and had some 2,000 inhabitants. Municipal independence was requested of the king, who at that time was Felipe II, and was granted in a charter.
At number 15 on Calle Calvo Sotelo there is a 17th-century house which bears a coat-of-arms, a corner-house on the main façade of which an important Baroque doorway is preserved. Nearby is a 20th-century modernist block of flats. Religious buildings are more abundant. There are four chapels from the 17th and 18th centuries, San Antón (Saint Anthony), San Pedro (Saint Peter), Santa Lucia (Saint Lucy) and, the most important, the Chapel of La Concepción (Conception) which stands in a square bearing the same name. The chapel has a nave which ends at the chevet with a hemispherical dome crowned by a lantern; it also has a very curious façade. The most outstanding building in the town is the 17th-century Parish Church of San Marcos (Saint Mark), although the interior, and the roof in particular, did undergo Neoclassical-style modifications at the end of the 19th century. The church has three naves with long barrel vaults of different heights; the central one is particularly worthy of mention. Inside the church there are seven free-standing pilasters which create the spatial rhythm of eight sections which end at the chevet. Nearby is a series of side chapels with hemispherical domes and false vaults; and on the right of the chancel is the sacristy. There is abundant Neoclassical decoration with metopes, triglyphs, capitals, borders and ovoli, etc. Outside, the church has a classical doorway with a flanked and cleanly finished round arch; there is a second doorway at the side in a recessed round niche which encases a second arch made with arch stones above which there is an oculus or small window; and a third more sober doorway can be found on side opposite that of the previous doorway. To the side of the bottom end of the church is a three-sided tower.

Special trips in Quintanar del Rey

The festivity for San Cristobal (Saint Christopher) on 10th July is held in the chapel dedicated to him in the town. San Isidro (Saint Isidore) is honoured on 15th May in the pine grove which bears the same name in the outskirts of the village.