Quart Towers

You have reached the western gate of the old city walls, the one that opened onto the road to Castile. Stand on the outer side, on Calle de Guillem de Castro, and look at the stone of the towers: it is pitted with holes and chips. This is not ordinary wear: these are the marks of projectiles.

1A younger sister to Serranos

Work began around 1441 and ended in 1460, under master builders such as Pere Bonfill, Francesc Baldomar and Pere Compte. The towers follow the layout of the Serranos Towers, but show the influence of the Castel Nuovo in Naples, which the Crown of Aragon was building at the time: towers with an outward curving profile, better prepared to withstand artillery, and an inner face open towards the city.

2La Galera

Like Serranos, Quart ended up as a prison. Between 1649 and 1868 it housed a women's prison known as La Galera, and it was then a military prison until 1931, the same year the gate was declared a monument.

3The siege of 1808

In June 1808, at the start of the Peninsular War, Marshal Moncey's French army tried to take Valencia. Its artillery fired on this gate, but the defenders held out and the French were forced to withdraw. The marks you see are attributed to that bombardment and have been deliberately preserved during restorations.

These are the most visible war scars in the whole city.

4What to look for

• The impacts in the stone, on the outer face of the towers.
• The curved shape of the towers, different from those at Serranos.
• The battlements and machicolations at the top, from which the gate was defended.