Villardompardo

Villadompardo is a town located in the region of La Campiña. In its municipal district predominates the flat terrain, with some uneven area, and its urban area is located high up on a mound. The main economic activity in the town is, in an exclusive way, the agriculture and specifically the dry olive cultivation, that occupies the whole area of the municipal district. In the last years it has tried to diversify this activity with the creation of a textile cooperative and several aluminium and wood frames. Finally, we can emphasize, like potential resources susceptible of exploitation, the gypsum quarry in the town.

After the conquest carried out by Fernando III, el Santo, in 1245, this town had been a humble Arab farmhouse sparsely populated and badly defended whose inhabitants were more devoted in the agriculture than the practice with arms. The king decided to cede it to one of his captains, Aznar Pardo, of whom it received the name of Villardompardo, with the job of repopulating it and organize a right defensive system that turned it into a enclave of protection in the face of the fortress of strong Arab towns like Arjona.

But the instability of the war between Arabs and Christians made that it successively was devastated and repopulated until, at last, in 1371, Enrique II, turned it into a lordship entrusted to a vassal of the military chief called Pedro Ruíz de Torres. Some years later Escañuela and Villargordo were under his protection. In 1461 the wedding between the countess of Castilla, lady of Villardompardo, and the constable Iranzo, prison governor of Jaén, increased the prestige of his castle that was boosted due to the predominant role that he had to fulfil in the Civil War and in which Lucas de Iranzo was so compromising.

The town increased its privileges with Enrique IV, the Spanish Catholic monarchs Ferdinand V and Isabella who, in 1558, turned the lordship into county and Fernando de Torres y Portugal into the first earl of Villardompardo. At around the end of the XVIII century the place was patrimony of the marquis and marquise of Bégica- earls of Villardompardo until the disappearance of the lordships.

During all this time the castle, nowadays a historic landmark in a dilapidated condition, was headquarters of important political and military events. It erected over an incline and elongated hill, its origin goes back to the XIII century although it was turned into a castle-palace in the second half of the XIV century and renovated again in the first half of the XVI century and at the end of the XVIII century.

Monuments

Parish Church San Juan Bautista. 
 
Hermitage. 
 
Archaeological Remains 
 
Ruins of the fortress.

Gastronomy

Pozo de Pan y aceite.  
Relleno de Cerdo. 
Migas de pan. 
Gazpacho. 
Conejo al sajaragui. 
Guisado de patas de cerdo.

How to get there

You have to exit Jaén and continue in: Carretera de Córdoba. Take the exit towards: Salida 70 - Torre del Campo. Then you have to cross Torre del Campo and follow the signs until you get Villardompardo.

Distances

To Jaén 27 km  
To Porcuna 24 km  
To Escañuela 6 km  
To La Muña 10 km  
To Torredonjimeno 11 km  
To Pilar de Moya 8 km  
To Puente del Villar 4 km  
To Higuera de Calatrava 20 km