The Palace of Cienfuegos de Peñalba arises on a hill near Pola de Allande. It was originally built in the 15th century on the site of an ancient fort, but has been refurbished so that the only remaining Gothic elements are on the lowest level.
The original owners were in the Ponce lineage, but it passed to the Counts de Luna and in 1515 to the Cienfuegos family lines. Around 1520 Rodrigo González de Cienfuegos, lord of Allande, undertook renovations to rebuild the property. In the eighteenth century, the property became the residence of the Count of Peñalba who renovated it to suit his tastes.
The Palace has L-shaped plan and is marked by three solid towers, which are not crenellated, adding to the monumental elements of the building and leading to its appearance of strong defenses. Of the three towers, the two oldest are the square ones and the most recent is rectangular. The last one was added as a housing area in the nineteenth century. It contains 23 bedrooms, as well as a hall, kitchen, living room, lounge, and oratory. The rectangular courtyard has little decoration or ornamentation. Without porticoes the first floor has a wooden gallery supported by thick, rough masonry columns. There are also multiple stables.
In 2008 a rehabilitation project was completed which recovered some of the shapes and colors from the 1888 gallery which was added to the main tower at that time.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).