Villatobas

Built between the 16th and 17th centuries, with three high naves covered with cross vaults on cruciform pillars and Ionic capitals interspersed with graceful spires. It is of transitional style from late Gothic to Renaissance, the vaults are ogival ribbed. It has a tower of three sections plus a base, the shortest of which houses the belfry.

This building is located in the centre of Villatobas and was built in the 16th century. Inside, the altarpiece of the main altar and the image of Jesús Nazareno, the latter a 17th century carving, both of which disappeared in 1936, stand out. The present altarpiece was built in 1948, and consists of three lanes. The current image of Jesús Nazareno was commissioned at the end of the Civil War, in 1939, and is the work of the Valencian sculptor Francisco Pablo. The main nave is covered with a barrel vault with lunettes, divided by five sash arches that rest on corbels on the walls. The transept is covered with a hemispherical dome, supported by a drum in which there are openings that illuminate the interior. The drum in turn rests on pendentives. The rectangular chancel is covered with a vaulted ceiling. The interior is articulated by Corinthian pilasters at the corners. The arms of the transept are square in plan and are also covered with hemispherical domes. The walls are made of whitewashed masonry. The corner ashlars on the outside could be seen in the original state of the hermitage, as well as the façade which is to be restored, also built with ashlars.

It was built in the first half of the 16th century , the references and allusions in the old documents in the parish archive of Villatobas date from 1547 onwards. Around the same year, several donations for the chapel appear. It was a large building, with a simple and popular quadrangular layout, in rough stone, rammed earth and plastered with plaster and lime, and with a hipped roof. By 1974-5, the hermitage was in an advanced state of disrepair, and no services were held there. In 2005-2006 it was rebuilt by the inhabitants of the Arrabal of the village of Villatobas, in the same place where the previous hermitage of the 16th century was located .

The age of this hermitage is attested in the parish archive, where it is recorded that the hermitage of Santa Ana existed as early as 1605. Of popular architecture, its walls were made of stone, with three buttresses for reinforcement. In this hermitage the villagers went to pray the flowers in the month of May, the children went to catechism classes and on the eve of the 26th of July, during the night, bonfires were lit in honour of Saint Anne. The masons have always celebrated it as their patron saint. In the years 1970-1975, the Hermitage was in a very bad state of conservation, causing its current ruin. In 2007 it was rebuilt on the same site as its former location by the residents of the Villatobas park area. An association was created in order to maintain it.

In 1626 its existence is mentioned in testamentary bequests. Although it may not have been completed until around 1647, when San José Agraz Calatayud made provision in his will for 10,000 maravedíes to help cover the chapel. His ancient confraternity received indulgences and blessings from the pontiffs Urban VIII in 1634 and Pius VI in 1796. The Hermitage preserves a simple altarpiece from the 17th century , the altar table in the form of a console and a canvas from the same period in the upper central part, depicting the flight into Egypt, are particularly noteworthy. Rectangular in shape, its architecture and artistic quality is more notable than that of the other small chapels in Villatobas. It has a semicircular vault with three transverse arches and lunettes. The entrance door is made of wood, with forged nails, lintel and carved wooden shoes.

On the road that leads to Lillo, the CM-3001, following the Portillo Rubio path, dotted with centuries-old holm oaks, you reach the archaeological site of "Plaza de Moros". Situated on a hill near the meadow of the Robledo stream, the archaeological remains indicate the presence of settlers from the Iron Age in the 4th or 3rd century BC. Among its most attractive features is the wall that surrounds it in its entirety, which has two towers. The adobe houses on stone plinths were covered with thatched roofs of holm oak and oak - species still found in the area - thatched with straw and interwoven branches. Among the tools found were various pieces of pottery decorated with red and black paint, flint tools and bronze utensils.

It is presided over by the town hall, lined with triangular pediments over the windows and crowned by a modern brick pavilion, flanked by the Pasaje de la Encomienda and surrounded by noble houses, decorated with family coats of arms.

Between the roads to Ocaña and Villamuelas stands out this natural environment where native plants make up an imposing forest mass composed of holm oaks, kermes oaks, rosemary, rockrose, lavender, mugwort or wormwood, which shelters a varied fauna of more than a hundred species: eagle owls, short-toed eagles, great bustards, dormice, dormouse, ocellated lizards, hares, rabbits, little bustards, weasels and the appreciated and emblematic red-legged partridge, honoured in a monument in the town square.

Numerous farmhouses, huts, caves, sheepfolds and their associated infrastructure such as wells, water mills, bridges and paths are still preserved today. "Zaragoza", "de Librada", "Mariquita", "del tío Felipe" or "de los Malos" give their names to the caves with a habitable structure and possibly also used in the past to keep farm animals.