Nuestra Señora de la Asunción Church

The Nuestra Señora de la Asunción Church in Villacarrillo was declared a National Monument on 3 June 1931. It was laid out to the plans by the contractor from Alcaraz, Andrés de Vandelvira, who designed the new church over the ruins of the old Moorish castle or watchtower. Construction began in the 1540s and finished in 1653. The result was an extraordinary church due to the uniqueness of its size, the spacious grandeur of its interior achieved with economy in resources, the originality and beauty of the vaults and the integration of medieval traditions with Renaissance classicism.

The inside of La Asunción Parish Church has a basilica layout, with a flat, overhanging chancel, and three naves divided by pillars and chapels with niches covered with cross vaults. The central ceiling is formed by vaults over pedentives and false lanterns. These pedentives are decorated with paintings of great beauty, done mainly in tempera and some in fresco by Pedro de Raxis between 1580 and 1597.

The sacristy was finished around the year 1618. It stands over the earlier church of Santa María del Castillo, in Gothic style. It has a rectangular layout, with a ceiling divided into three sections with lobbed vaults.

The altarpieces in the La Asunción Church date from between the 17th and 18th centuries and are in Baroque and Rococo style.

The church is entered through two main entrances, one at the opposite end to the altar, of great beauty and Plateresque influences, called Puerta del Sol, and another, on the northern wall, called Puerta de Umbría.

La Asunción Parish Museum shows pieces from the churches in the town, and others donated by brotherhoods and the congregation. These include pieces of precious metalwork from the 17th, 18th and19th centuries, as well as missals, bibles, chasubles, etc.