The Castromocho Bridge heritage site is located on the Campos branch of the Castile Canal, around kilometer 128.050, within the municipality of Castromocho (Palencia). Built between 1842 and 1849, this site represents a key moment in the history of communications, when the canal coexisted with and competed alongside new land transport infrastructure. Its main function was to ensure the continuity of roads over the canal, integrating road traffic into a large-scale hydraulic engineering project and reinforcing the territorial cohesion of the region.
The main feature is the Membrillar or Castromocho Bridge, a solid limestone ashlar structure spanning the canal with a segmental arch. The arch has a span of approximately 10 meters and a height of nearly 4 meters, while the entire structure measures about 12.30 meters in length, 4.85 meters in width, and 6 meters in total height. The composition is completed with stone parapets and wing walls that protect the structure and visually organize the building. At the base of the arch are stone walkways that ensure the continuity of the towpaths along the canal. The bridge is in a good state of preservation and retains its original hydraulic structure, justifying its comprehensive protection and its outstanding heritage value as an example of 19th-century engineering fully integrated into the landscape.
Associated with the bridge are the abutments of the old narrow-gauge railway bridge, built with stone supports and edges and brick facings, remnants of the now-defunct Palencia–Villalón line, which connected with the Medina de Rioseco–Villada railway. These railway infrastructures, now disused, bear witness to the competition between the canal and the railway in the first half of the 20th century and retain their original structural elements, which are protected as structural elements.
A visit to the Castromocho Bridge complex allows one to understand the superimposition of historical infrastructures in the same place, where canal and railway converse with the open landscape of Tierra de Campos.
