In the Islamic period the town was fortified and provided with a triple enclosure of walls. This fortification was accessed through four gates: Catena, which is the best preserved, Gontar, Mediodia or Orcera and the New Gate, which was rebuilt in the 16th century. It was declared a Picturesque Landscape and Historic-Artistic Site along with the town. Currently, it is home to an interpretation center called Segura de la Sierra. Border Territory in which you can delve into the Middle Ages, during which Segura de la Sierra was a relevant enclave. This interpretive space consists of several exhibition sets from the family environment of the warrior poet, ranging from sound elements that recreate the conversation that Jorge Manrique has with his father, Don Rodrigo, on the stage of the Coplas on the death of his father, as well as other interpretive speeches more linked to the author's poetic work. After visiting Jorge Manrique's interpretive space, it is possible to climb the battlements of the Torre del Homenaje and shudder with the spectacular views it offers: El Yelmo, with its more than 1,800 meters of altitude and symbol of the Sierra de Segura; Segura La Vieja (Iberian town), the Cerro de Góntar, the Peñalta viewpoint and so on countless landmarks that, together with a relaxed reading of Manriqueña poetry, will offer the visitor an emotion that will connect them forever with Segura de la Sierra.

The original construction was a fortified rural church, built in masonry repointed with lime mortar, with an irregular basilica plan and a quadrangular head offset to the left, a characteristic that defines those known as “Crooked” head Churches. It was divided into three naves, the central one being the widest, by arches on pillars and columns, lacking a transept, whose capitals have late Romanesque decoration. On the outside, on its northern side, during the archaeological excavations, part of a “U”-shaped trench excavated in the geological base was located, with an approximate depth of 2 m, and a dry-joined masonry wall that rests directly on the pit, possibly an antemural that delimited a narrow list. The excavations also revealed the existence of numerous burials both inside and outside the temple, most of them in the head and in its surroundings. The bodies rested in trapezoidal or anthropomorphic graves excavated in the rock, some with marked heads, and covered by earthen mounds or, in some cases, stone slabs. A burial covered by part of a large ceramic container stood out. This first building was destroyed and burned by the Nasrid armies of Muhammad V, allies of King Pedro I, around 1368, during the conflicts between the Castilian king and his half-brother Enrique II of Trastámara. After its destruction, a new church was built that maintains its layout, although it incorporates modifications. Two towers are erected, that of San Miguel, at the foot of the church and that of Santa María, which will encompass the head, now with a semicircular shape inside. This new fortification corresponds to the external walled enclosure that is preserved today, with an irregular pentagonal layout and five solid corner towers, built in masonry. It was defended by a rampart or a barbican and a moat. In the parade ground, the new fortified church was rebuilt as a fortress: two large towers joined by two sections of walls that form a wide walkway with loopholes, supported by semicircular arches on buttresses. This building was functionally divided into two environments: the lower one for religious use and the upper one for military use. The worship space was divided into three naves, the central one being the widest. A large terrace was formed above the cult area, which would serve as a parade ground and give access to the defensive elements of the walls and tower of Santa María. At this time the burials will be concentrated in the exterior area, relegated to the head and surrounding areas, with the exception of two tombs that are located inside next to the large arch that gives access to the apse area, the most sacred space of this new church. Between the end of the 15th century and the first half of the 16th century, this fortified church was adapted into a castle-palace. The works consisted of the construction of two large bodies and a small porticoed patio with three carpanel arches with Renaissance capitals, which would serve as the articulating axis of the noble residence, around which various rooms are distributed. The apse area of ​​the church was transformed into an oratory by the Commander of Lopera D. Juan Pacheco in 1535, covered by a barrel vault decorated with Renaissance plasterwork and painted inscriptions, which was also accessed from the exterior patio through a new door made on the north façade, equipped with a portico on columns. On the outside of the building, archaeological excavations brought to light a garden space, with a large patio, with a fountain that was supplied with water extracted by a water wheel and an orchard area, which confirm its use as a residential home. In the 20th century the castle functioned as a residence and winery, a phase from which numerous buried wine cellars are preserved to the west of the San Miguel tower, which caused the destruction of the archaeological levels. In the area around Lopera, sites from the Bronze and Iron Age have been found; settlements of the Lower Roman Empire with continued occupation until the Visigothic period; as well as rural settlements from the Emiral period, which used the Cerro de San Cristóbal as a common place of refuge, including the Lopera farm itself, which we could identify with the population of Bayyara cited in Islamic sources. The archaeological investigations carried out to date in its historic center confirm the existence of this farm that exploited the agricultural resources of the area in the 12th and 13th centuries. After the conquest, Lopera was handed over, in 1240–1241, to the Military Order of Calatrava, creating the Commandery of Lopera, which would reinforce its primitive defenses between the 14th and 15th centuries. The Order managed to form an extensive lordship in the extreme southwest of the current province of Jaén, which included large areas of the Campiña and a good part of the foothills of the Sierras Sur, bordering the Kingdom of Granada, which led it to promote extensive fortification work in its possessions. This network of fortifications played an important border role in the territorial expansion undertaken by the Castilian armies during the 13th and 14th centuries, regaining prominence in the second half of the 15th century, within the framework of the noble struggles during the reign of Henry IV. In the confrontation between the supporters of the Castilian monarch against the followers of a noble coalition headed by D. Pedro Pacheco, Marquis of Villena and D. Pedro Girón, Master of Calatrava, the members of the Order actively participating in the contest. During the conflict, the Lopera fortress was attacked and looted in 1466 by the allies of the Constable of Castile, led by the Mayor of Andújar, Pedro de Escavias. It was declared an independent town by Philip II in 1595. In the 19th century, with the confiscation, the assets of the church were acquired for the most part by bourgeoisie, the ownership of the castle passing into the hands of Alonso de Valenzuela, deputy and mayor of Lopera, in 1856. During the Spanish Civil War, Lopera once again became a prominent scene of a war, since the dividing line between both national and republican sides, popularly known as the Andújar front, was located around the town. Numerous vestiges have remained of this conflict in the area around Lopera: machine gun nests, Republican trenches, an anti-tank fort, basements and caves used as anti-aircraft shelters in the same town. The most notable episode was the Battle of Lopera, fought between December 27 and 29, 1936, in which the rebellious armies conquered Lopera. Finally, in the 20th century the Calatrava fortress was used as a wine cellar, a new use that profoundly transformed the original structure of the defensive complex, conditioned as a temporary residence and wine cellar and introducing irreversible changes to the castle.

After the conquest of the city in 1246 by Ferdinand III the Saint, its use continued during the first years of Christian rule. It will be between the 14th and 15th centuries when its function as a bath disappears when the Christians establish tanneries in its rooms. Proof of this are the remains of its facilities that are still preserved in the Temperate and Hot Rooms. At the end of the 16th century, Don Fernando de Torres y Portugal, Count of Villardompardo and Viceroy of Peru, built his Palace on the Baths, leaving part of them hidden between the foundations and basements, remaining this way during the 18th and 19th centuries. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Palace became part of the real estate assets of the Provincial Council of Jaén, an institution that, between 1901 and 1903, freed up the space of several houses adjacent to the property in order to build a Chapel for the Women's Hospice. These works must have affected the remains that still remained of the bathrooms. In 1913, during the inspection of the Palacio de Villardompardo factory for the preparation of the Monumental Catalog of Jaén, a small part of the Baths was discovered by Don Enrique Romero de Torres. Just four years later, they were visited by the Professor of Archeology Mr. Manuel Gómez Moreno, who, once the appropriate data had been taken, proposed the property as a National Monument. This proposal was accepted and in 1931 the remains were declared a National Monument with the General Registry number 528. In 1936 the restoration works began under the direction of Mr. Leopoldo Torres Balbás and his partner, the architect from Jaén, Mr. Luis Berges Martínez. However, these works would be interrupted by the beginning of the Civil War. It would not be until 1970 when the General Directorate of Fine Arts commissioned the first restoration project of the Baths to the architect Luis Berges Roldán, son of the previous one. This initial project was followed by six more in successive years, the last two in 1980 and 1982, in agreement with the Provincial Council of Jaén. Thanks to the work, most of the Rooms that can be seen today were discovered. Once the works were completed in 1984, the Europa Nostra Association awarded the Medal of Honor that year to the restoration of the Arab Baths. The rooms that make up the Arab Baths are: Lobby (al-bayt al-maslaj) The entrance hall is a transverse room 14 meters long by 3.80 meters wide, with bedrooms at both ends separated from the rest of the room by horseshoe arches on half columns, a scheme that will be repeated in all the other rooms. On both sides of the entrance there are two blocks. The room is covered by a barrel vault and has 18 star lights. The floor was covered in white marble and the walls were plastered and painted with decoration of red arches on a white background. Cold Room (al-bayt al-barid) Adjacent and very similar to the previous one although smaller in size (11.4 m x 3.50 m.), this room is also covered by a half-barrel vault in which 12 windows are located. The bedroom located on the far right is covered with a dome with 5 lights. Temperate Room (al-bayt al-wastani) It consists of a large square hall measuring 11.30 m x 11.30 m which, in turn, encloses another central square, this one covered by a large dome with a hemispherical cap on pendentives. The dome does not rest on solid walls but on horseshoe arches supported by eight columns. In the four corners of the great hall there are four other smaller domes, and the remaining spaces are covered with four half-barrel vaults with 3 windows in each of them. This large room gives way, through two horseshoe arches, to another room of 11.30 m x 2.80 m that presides over the entire complex and is covered by a half-barrel vault; having two bedrooms at the ends covered with domes with windows. Hot Room (al-bayt al-sajum) With dimensions of 15.90 m long by 3.30 m wide, the hot room is very similar to the previous rooms. It is covered with a half-barrel vault with 15 windows and with two bedrooms at the ends with 5 windows each. This room is located next to the boilers where the water was heated. Its walls are covered by hidden chimneys through which hot air circulated. In the center of the room, a large flared arch separates it from the place where the boiler was. On both sides of this central arch, two small rooms contain: one, a square sitz bath and the other, two jars. Under its stone floor, the entire room is hollow: numerous small brick pillars support it, allowing hot air to circulate, which, due to its natural tendency, rises and adheres to the floor, warming it. Juan Eslava Galán makes continuous mention of both spaces in Los Templarios and Salomón's Table. (…) In the center of the Magdalena neighborhood, surrounded by the initiation places of the old matriarchal sanctuary, in front of the palace of the counts of Villardompardo, scions of the Torres family, in whose basements you can visit the Arab baths where the Moorish king died (…) The Templars and Solomon's Table. Chapter 27. In the same building that makes up the Villardompardo palace there is also the Museo Internacional de Arte Naïf “Manuel Moral”, the first and only one in Spain specialized in this art; and the Museo de Artes y Costumbres Populares de Jaén. In the square in front of the palace, there is also an element that Juan Eslava Galán is very interested in in his research on the Templars: the duck fountain. (…) in the Santa Luisa de Marillac square (…). In the center, emerging from the still water, an octagonal pillar (so common in Templar and Calatrava construction) supports a hemisphere (the stone of the Mother Goddess) on which stands a goose with its palmiped legs extended on the stone. (…). Let us remember that the goose is one of the main symbols of the matriarchal cults of the sanctuary (...) The Templars and Solomon's Table. Chapter 26.

We can highlight some curiosities: -   It was the place where the body of the monarch Ferdinand IV, king of Castile, who died in Jaén, was laid to rest.  -   Juan de Olid (secretary of Constable Iranzo) and his wife Randelez are buried inside. -   Maximilian of Austria was baptized in 1555, who, if recognized, would be the half-brother of Philip the Fair. It can be visited by prior reservation with one of the authorized companies and guides: Association of Official Guides: 606 68 23 03 Claritas Tourism: 678 77 50 43 Lizard Tours: 953 71 52 15 For more information, contact the Municipal Tourism Office: 953 19 04 55