Torreón de Huétor, Huétor-Tájar

The Tower of Huétor was a tower of the fortified walled system of the farmstead of Huétor. This corresponds to the current town of Huétor-Tájar, located on the left bank of the river Genil in the centre of the west of Granada. The Torreón is located in the old part of the town, in the southern part of the town, very close to the Plaza de Andalucía, where the Parish Church of Santa Isabel and the Town Hall are also located. It is registered in the General Register of BIC since 22nd June 1993.

Nowadays, the Torreón de Huétor is the last vestige of the old defensive fortifications that surrounded the farmhouse in the Nasrid period, before the Castilian conquest. It was used as a house for the administrator of the Counts of Montijo and then as a warehouse, to end up being covered by some houses, and nowadays by the Cafeteria La Torre, from which there is an access to the Torreón. The monument is privately owned and its state of conservation, like that of so many other monuments of the Andalusian heritage, is lamentable, without the public administrations paying due attention to it.

The Tower has a square floor plan, measuring 4.10 x 3.95 metres, with the largest side facing north-south. Its height is 13,50 meters, distributed in a solid first floor and four upper floors, while the terrace is of later construction. The walls of the enclosure that surrounded this great tower, located to the NW, N and NE of it, were apparently demolished in the present century, as they are remembered by elderly local people who, including some of them, worked on their demolition to then build the buildings that now face the church. All agree on the great hardness of its construction material, possibly rammed earth and masonry.