View of the bridge
The Roman bridge of Villarta de San Juan (Province of Ciudad Real, Spain) was declared an Artistic Monument of National Character on November 30, 1983. Its first origin is Roman, although its structure was consolidated and strengthened in medieval time, like important point and of forced construction for the continuation of the Roman road from Consaburus to Laminio, coinciding the location of Villarta with the Roman city of Murum that many historians situate in Villarta or environs.
Known popularly as "El Puente Viejo", it is located between the kilometers 145 and 146 of the old national highway Madrid-Cádiz (National IV) describing an arch of approximately 500 meters.
It covers a depression that plunges the waters of the rivers Gigüela and Záncara, gathered in an endorheic lagoon of interesting ecological value.
The importance of the Bridge lies in its dimensions 500 meters in length and an average of 5 meters wide with 46 eyes, all different and distributed irregularly, which meant a thorough knowledge of the terrain on which it was built that perfectly collected the different streams of water that the river was forming in its slow route by the marshy zone. The last four eyes have been discovered during the restoration works being carried out, hitherto covered by debris or by the works carried out in 1920, when the road to Andalusia was built. Nevertheless, we suppose the existence of some more already unavoidably irretrievable to be under the mentioned road.
In its first section we find 19 eyes and in the second 27 eyes. In this same section there are two quarters of quadrangular form of 12x5,5 meters separated from each other about 140 meters, attached to the left side in the north. To the opposite side and between them there is a small triangular plant with a 2-meter side that served to divert the water, avoiding that the current, very strong when the water flowed through that zone, would punish in excess the structure of the bridge, besides a support mission as well as the buttresses.
Along the bridge and on both sides are gargoyles for the evacuation of rainwater, consisting of thin slabs and grooved.
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