Restoration Portal of the Monastery of Santa María la Real de Valdeiglesias

The Portal of the Church of the Monastery of Santa María la Real de Valdeiglesias is located on the right bank of the Alberche River, halfway up the slope in the valley of the Arroyo del Molino de la Presa, in the municipality of Pelayos de la Presa, located at the southwest of the Community of Madrid.

It is a baroque façade of granite masonry from the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries in the Herreriano style, configured as an altarpiece topped with a belfry in which round sculptures and calcareous heraldic reliefs are located in niches, attached to the original façade of the S XIII, built with masonry, brick and plaster factories. The containment architectures of the granite factories, buttresses and walls of adjoining architectures, are made up of different masonry assemblies and granite masonry.

The restoration project is part of the criteria established in the different interventions carried out over the years in the Monastery, whose monitoring and management corresponds to the Conservation and Restoration Area of ​​the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Community of Madrid. The restoration has had as its objective the consolidation of the different factories and constructions that build and reinforce the cover.

In the state prior to the intervention, it was possible to verify the presence of cracks and expirations of the architecture, especially in the upper bodies and belfry, which had caused the detachment of the ashlars that make up the voussoir system of the lintels of the openings.

Both the stone material and the mortars and plasters presented alterations typical of their aging, as well as natural pathologies due to the local climate, causing a manifest fatigue in all of them due to their poor state of conservation.

After analyzing the pathologies of the architecture and detecting the agents of alteration that caused them, the following interventions were carried out:

• Structural consolidation of the different construction units through injections of whitewash, large static stitching, caulking, repositioning and repositioning of stonework.
• Restoration of factories through the application of biocidal treatments, cleaning, sanitizing and sealing joints and fissures with lime mortar, micro stitching, surface consolidations and volume reconstructions with reinforced lime mortar.
• Restoration of plasters by means of superficial consolidations, sealing of cracks and edges with lime mortar, internal consolidation by means of injections and superficial cleaning.
• In the opening of the door, a locksmith door is installed as an accessibility control measure for visitors and users of the Monastery, since it is a visitable complex.

The Monastery of Santa María la Real de Valdeiglesias in Pelayos de la Presa is the most important monastic foundation of the Cistercian Order that is preserved in the Community of Madrid. Learn about its history and the previous restoration phases of the monastery: