Historical data

The data relating to the medieval Génave are scarce, but it must have been one of the many foothills that populated the Sierra de Segura. A fortification or tower was probably built between the 11th and 13th centuries in the face of the advance of Christian armies.

After the Christian conquest, between 1235 and 1239, Géave and the whole Sierra de Segura were controlled by the Order of Santiago's Order and they had to endure the raison and attacks of intimidation of Saracena troops, so this and other torreons acted as a parapet in these war skirmishes and as a shelter for the population.

The chronicles written at the end of the Middle Ages, such as those of Don Francisco de León in 1468 or the Relations of Philip II of 1575, speak of the tower without any reference to a castle or enclosure of important dimensions, so it had to replace the ancient Islamic fortress.

Until 1551 Génave was the village of Segura de la Sierra, from that year on he received the privilege of Villa de orden de Felipe II.

In 1575 Génave is included in the Chancellery district of Granada, it depends on the archbishopric of Toledo and the Kingdom of Murcia before the Cortes, although it is directly under the governorate of Segura de la Sierra.

Description

This tower, surrounded by buildings that cover its bottom, is built in irregular masonry.

It has a square floor of 10.50 m on its side, and in its interior two overlapping rooms are kept covered with half-canyon vaults. To access each of them, as well as the roof, there is a staircase embedded in the thickness of the walls covered with the same type of vault.

The access is now made through a building that houses the Adult Center of the town and which was previously the seat of the City Council.

The tower was declared in 1985 Good of Cultural Interest.

This castle reached the second-rank level at the time of the Constable Iranzo, played an important role in taking sides, like Andújar, on the realistic side when in 1465 the king's enemies placed Jaén, and became famous when, six years later, the warden Diego Frías stopped and ordered a rival of the Constable, Don Fernando de Acuña, son of the Count of Buendía and no less than nephew of the Archbishop of Toledo, to be locked in his tower.
In fact, the castle, of small dimensions, was formed by a cylindrical tower with an almond parapet, as Martin drew it from Ximena Jurado. A stone from the upper tower seems to have an inscription, probably Arabic. There is no trace of this tower in the village. However, the head of the church presents a lock that could correspond to the remains of the castle. This solid semicircular wall of masonry could be reused from a large round tower, sister of those of the Rus and El Marmol castles, in the lands of Baeza.
This turret was declared Good of Cultural Interest in 1985.

Location: To the south of the town, in the natural park of Cazorla, Segura and Las Villas.

Distance: 42 km

Medium: By vehicle, by bike and on foot.

Access route:: On the road A-319 towards La Iruela; at this point, after going 13 km, we will take the Chorro road, then turn away by the horseshoe road leading to Puerto Llano.

The hill of the Poyos de la Mesa is an inverted relief in which the dolomies of the Upper Cretaceous and the limestones of the discordant Miocene on them are affected by a sincerity perfectly visible from the north.

The fold is more tight in the older materials (Cretaceous dolomies), and is more open in the discordants (myocene limestones). Both litological sets flare at the top, very steep, of the relief. Between them there is a well-developed canchal, which marks approximately the axial plane of the fold.

Source: Inventory of Georresources of Andalusia. Environmental Council. Junta de Andalusia.

The total power of the section is over 150 m. On a few sucrose dolomies attributed to the lower and medium Jurassic we find materials from the upper Kimmeridgian; they are limeals with large gastropods and corals that end up on an erosive surface with a crusts of iron oxides.

The following are limestones, locally sandy and margas, with various levels of interspersed calcrets; these materials are being decrified and dolomitised, giving way to stoned dolomies with abundant carbonous remains; this whole set of materials is of the age Hauteriviense- Barremiense. The lower Aptiense is characterized by the presence of sands, calcareous sandstone and sandy limestone with laminations and cross stratifications as well as orbitolins at various levels. The materials of the upper Aptiense have abundant rudists and orbitolins. The Albibe is represented by dolomies with black songs and ghosts of rudists.

Source: Inventory of Georresources of Andalusia. Environmental Council. Junta de Andalusia.