Ayuntamiento de Olvera

Parade ground

The parade ground of the medieval fortress of Olvera is traced following the course of the living rock on which it sits. There are hypotheses that there might have been up to three more towers in the fortress (in addition to the homage one). One quadrangular to the North, and another two —pentagonal and semicircular respectively— halfway along the stretch of the East wall. In it, however, two clearly differentiated areas can be distinguished: two cisterns located in different places and an archaeological excavation area that was respected in the 2004 intervention. In said intervention, the rehabilitation of the path of the walkway along of its perimeter was verified—installing wooden passageways when it was necessary— and the walls were increased to offer security during the sightseeing tour. These walls were probably battlemented at some point in the Middle Ages. There is graphic documentation in which it can be seen that they had practically disappeared almost entirely and that they rebuilt again at various times in their historical evolution. From the walkway of the wall there is access through a wooden staircase to the battlements of the corner entrance and to the south flanking cube. Likewise, its route in the southwestern part of the fortress is enabled up to the Tower of Homage itself. Probably, this final zone of the walkway was used to protect the partition wall and the corner entrance. From the parade ground we can enter the Tower of Homage through an elevated area called stairway.