Atalaya Castle (Cartagena)
The Atalaya Castle, also known as the Atalaya Fort, is a castle built in the 18th century in what is now the district of Canteras, in the Spanish municipality of Cartagena (Region of Murcia). It was declared an Asset of Cultural Interest on 7 August 1997.
History
The strategic position of the Atalaya hill was known since the late Middle Ages, when the Council placed a watchtower there to warn of possible pirate attacks or allies of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada. The watchtower proved its usefulness in 1561, when on 4 May 1800 Ottoman soldiers disembarked at La Algameca with the intention of pouncing on Cartagena by surprise. The convenient warning brought Luis Fajardo de la Cueva, Marquis of Los Vélez, who, commanded by Murcian knights and Carthaginian levies, defeated the invaders near the Benipila wadi.
The first serious attempts to erect a fort on top of the mountain came in 1706, during the War of the Spanish Succession. At the time, the town was occupied by the English on behalf of Archduke Charles of Austria, and they needed to secure their position in the hostile kingdom of Murcia. With this objective in mind, two forts were built at two strategic points, which would give rise to the building we are dealing with and the castle of San Julián, which would come to defend the mouth of the port.
The definitive construction of the castle of La Atalaya was designed in 1766 by the military engineer Pedro Martín-Paredes Cermeño, in the context of the process of improving military structures in Cartagena in the reign of Charles III, and which was motivated by the appointment in 1726 of the city as the capital of the Maritime Department of the Mediterranean. The works were completed in 1777 on the Atalaya hill following the precise instructions of the Count of Aranda, who wished to nullify the possibility of repeated enemy landings at La Algameca and at the same time protect the Military Arsenal next to the Galeras Castle, built in the same period.
From then on, the castle would suffer the vicissitudes of the city's military history, acquiring prominence during the centralist siege of Cartagena during the Cantonal Rebellion, a period in which its name was changed to "Death Castle". On the night of 9 January 1874, while the besieging army subjected the square to an intense bombardment, elements of the Cantonalist garrison secretly met with the enemy, surrendering it next to the fortification. Attempts by the leader Antonete Gálvez to retake the fortress were rebuffed, precipitating the capitulation of Cartagena.
When the Spanish Civil War broke out, the city was in the hands of the Republican side and the castle was used by the Military Information Service to house a prison cell where prisoners such as the Navy Information and Propaganda Service agent José Ladiñán López, the merchant Mamerto Melgarejo Cánovas and the doctor José Romero Font were violently interrogated in search of evidence of pro-Revolt activities. The end of the war did not mean the immediate end of its penitentiary functions, as between April and November 1939 its facilities housed part of the concentration camp complex that Franco's repression made operate in Cartagena.
Subsequently, the Ministry of the Army transferred it to the Ministry of Finance in the 1960s, to finally pass its possession to Cartagena City Council, without it having been given any use or care, which is why its current state is one of prolonged deterioration. To prevent the castle from continuing to be abandoned to its fate, initiatives have arisen from associations such as Adepa and Aforca, as well as individuals from the nearby neighbourhood of La Concepción, which for the moment have not achieved an institutional response, even with the declaration of an Asset of Cultural Interest in 1997. In this regard, in June 2014 the castle was included in the Red List of endangered heritage of the association Hispania Nostra.
Wikipedia)
Website:https://turismo.cartagena.es/detalle_arquitectura_defensiva.asp?id=2
