Villalón de Campos

Villalón de Campos is a town in the province of Valladolid, in the Tierra de Campos region, which the Camino de Madrid crosses between Cuenca de Campos and Santervás de Campos, some five kilometres after the former. For centuries it was an important trading centre: in the 15th and 16th centuries, under the lordship of the Pimentel family, Counts-Dukes of Benavente, it hosted one of the great livestock fairs of Castile, and its market relied largely on the cheese made in the town since the Middle Ages. Its hallmark is the 16th-century Gothic jurisdictional pillory, declared a National Monument and considered one of the finest in Spain. Its heritage is completed by the Gothic-Mudéjar church of San Miguel, which holds the tomb of Diego González del Barco by Juan de Juni; the church of San Juan, with a notable altarpiece; and the church of San Pedro, with its five-storey tower. On the outskirts stands the hermitage of Nuestra Señora de Fuentes. For pilgrims, Villalón is the best-served town on this stretch of the Meseta, with shops, bars, accommodation and a Cheese Museum. It is a stop steeped in history in the middle of the Castilian plain.