Campillo de Deleitosa: Extremadura's smallest village and its old ironworks

Often cited as the least populous municipality in all of Extremadura, with only around 150 inhabitants, Campillo de Deleitosa is a hamlet in the Caceres province that grew up in the Middle Ages from a group of shepherds who tended their flocks far from the parent town of Deleitosa. Small as it is, it sits in country of great natural and historical richness.

A medieval ironworks

The village's oldest monument is its parish church of San Sebastian, a 17th-century building that seems to join two churches in one, its differing heights and stonework betraying successive stages of construction. More unusual is the medieval ironworks, or herreria, dating from the 13th century, set in a now-dry streambed and followed today by walkers on the signposted Ruta de la Herreria.

Wild country and birds

Around the village lie prehistoric caves and the traces of a late-Roman settlement, finds from which are kept in the museum of Caceres. Campillo stands at the threshold of the Monfrague Biosphere Reserve and the UNESCO Villuercas-Ibores-Jara Geopark, in a landscape of dehesa and rocky ridges rich in birds of prey, among them the rare Iberian imperial eagle.

Getting there

Campillo de Deleitosa is about thirty-seven kilometres from Navalmoral de la Mata, reached by minor roads off the A-5 near the Miravete pass.