Chilluévar

Chilluévar is a little town located in the northern part of the region Alto Guadalquivir and whose north-east part is part of the Parque Natural de las Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas.

It has a farming territory and dependent on the olive grove. This cultivation occupies the incline lands that go from the North to East until the rivers of the Vega and Cañamares to the south, south-west and south-east, where we can find the herbaceous growing.

The proximity of cultivation lands and the mountain range make up an appropriate environment for the species of big and small game and for the small insectivore birds; although the pressure of the hunting makes that they are not abundant. The city centre is very typical due to its narrow and steep streets.

The oldest proofs found in its municipal district date from the Iberian Age, in the small village of Las Almansas, and from the Roman Age, in which it was occupied with rural towns. From this period we have a collection of undertaker’s inscriptions in the Museo Provincial. 
 
During the Moslem Age Chilluévar has been identified with Alcoray, a town mentioned for the first time in 1256, and that it should be the Alcorahe quoted in 1384 in a document that belonged to the king Juan I.  
 
The boost and consolidation of Chilluévar starts in 1231, date in which the lands were part of the "Adelantamiento de Cazorla", wealth of the archbishopric of Toledo. We can say that there are two circumstances that contributed to the blossoming of this town, on the one hand the building works developed by the Cardinal of Toledo, Don Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada, in his eagerness to spread the new Christian faith in the lands conquered to the Moslems but on the other hand, the activity of ranchers in this place, when Chilluévar was an obliged way of the Mesta in the path that connected Andalucía with Levante. In "Chilluévar la Vieja", like nowadays is known the original settlement, it was built a hermitage, an inn, a cemetery and a reservoir. Stockbreeders, pilgrims and traders visited the hermitage, have a rest in the inn and guesthouses, and watered the cattle.  
 
The disappearance of the Mesta and the seasonal migration of livestock meant the progressive decline and marginalization of this primitive city centre, but not of the town that at the end of  XVIII century it consecrated a new parish church in the place called "Chilluévar Nuevo", at a quarter of league from the old hermitage. In 1787 the small village received the title of "villa" at the request of the Cardinal Lorenzana, a title that although it did not mean the independence, recognized it like a population centre. 
 
The first years in the XX century are marked by the long process of segregation in Chilluévar from Iruela that culminated December 14, 1926, with the local independence. 
 
 Monuments

Parish Church of Ntra. Señora de la Paz.

A Roman paved road and bridge in the River Cañamares.

Archaeological remains in the Roman site of Los Almansas.

Gastronomy

Gachamigas (with fried rashers of bacon and dried peppers). Talarines (flat cakes with mushrooms and hare or partridge). Serrana omelette (omelette made with pastry of chorizo). Trouts. Lamb with rosemary. Melojas. Ajo labrado. Collejas omelette. 
 
Sweets: Rice pudding. Oatmeal porridges.

How to get there

You have to exit Jaén towards: Mancha Real - Baeza - Úbeda. Alleyway of Mancha Real. You pass near Garcíez. Alleyway of Donadío and San Miguel. You have to continue via the Motorway A-315 and turn the left to take the road JV-3141. Alleyway of Valdecazorla. You have to cross Santo Tomé and continue until you get Chilluévar.

Distances

To Jaén 100 km
To Úbeda 46 km
To Torreperogil 37 km
To Veracruz 15 km
To Almansas 2 km
To Mancha Real 81 km
To Villanueva del Arzobispo 33 km