Mazaleón Town Hall and prison (18th century)

The construction of this Town Hall began in the 19th century. XVI as a symbol of the increase in municipal power and following the model of the Renaissance town halls of the region with a market and leisure market, prison, meeting room, etc. Access was through the current entrance door to the prisons. In the S. XVIII (on the façade we find the date 1742) an important expansion was made: one more arch was added to the market, the street was covered and another building was built on the right and a new main façade. Inside there was an oratory with a Holy Christ, currently missing. At the end of the 20s of the s. In the 20th century, the Plenary Hall and the administrative rooms were renovated in a modernist style and in the 1980s (20th century) the interior was renovated and the façade, which had been painted in the 19th century, was restored. XIX an allegorical mural to the Constitution of Cádiz (1812). The clock and the bell tower were added in 1931 thanks to the lottery prize that the council won that same year, an anecdote that is indicated on the weather vane. The tile with the name “consistorial houses” in plural refers to the confluence here of three public buildings of municipal property: the Town Hall, the house of the Brotherhood of San Miguel and Santa Lucía (s .XVII) and the Sheriff's house (demolished at the end of the 20th century).

This building houses a dungeon, preserved in its original state. It is a narrow room, small in size and completely isolated from the outside. A brick pilaster with a rectangular section is preserved in it, with a hole in its lower area that was used as a latrine or waste pit. It is accessed through a small lintel door. It preserves the original bolt: an element that is completely embedded in the wall, so it had to be done at the same time as the work of the wall itself. Next to the door there is a small window open in the wall, like a loophole or loophole. Its roof is lintel, made of wood or round logs. And the pavement retains the original dirt floor. Interior walls: Masonry with some areas of plaster. Some incised graffiti remains (numerals, accounts, compass circles, etc.) and others painted in charcoal on the wall located in front of the latrine. In this prison the original stocks are preserved intact. By means of the two beams joined by metal elements, located on the lower plane, the prisoners were held by the ankles.
On an intermediate level, another piece of wood served as a seat. In it you can see two holes of considerable size, through which the prisoners had to relieve themselves. Finally, another piece of wood fitted into the side walls had to be used to support the arms.

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