Architecture
The castle is located in an urban context, is walls encircling the area known as Outeiro de Santa Vitória, the top of which is the castle, 299 metres (981 ft) in altitude, transformed into a citadel with bulwark fortifications. It is positioned, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the Spanish frontier and 18 kilometres (11 mi) from Badajoz and Elvas (areas that are visible from its towers), the fortress is encircled in the north, northeast, east and southeast by modern buildings and the town is similarly encircled by agricultural lands.
A heavily walled fortification, formed of a ten-sided polygon curtain of walls, with some missing facades. The walls, from the south, in a clockwise direction: the bulwark of Boa Vista, middle bulwark of São Sebastião, the gates of the Vila (town), the middle bulwark of Lisbon, middle bulwark of Curral dos Coelhos, bulwark of Santa Cruz, bulwark of Cavaleiro (also referred to as the São João bulwark), the middle bulwark of Príncipe, bulwark of Fonte do Concelho, middle bulwark of São Francisco and middle bulwark of Santa Rosa. The fortification also includes a gap and counterescarp in part of its extension, namely in the south and northeastern parts, as well as four turrets.
A number of military edifices have occupied the spaces within the castle, collectively maintaining several of the existing buildings in some form of use (the warehouses, barracks, stables and living spaces).
The castle retains two of its six original towers, an irregular rectangular space with walls forming a trapezoid space, with battlements and adarve permitting access to the remaining towers. The towers have battlements and walls, terminating in a frusto-pyramidal domes, rounded at the top. Each tower has a vaulted ceiling at the adarve, with the northern tower exemplified by a decorated Renaissance window. To the south, are the walls that circle the old village of Campo Maior, a rough design in the form of a elipse, with seven towers, six rectangular and one, in the northeast, octagonal, forming the main entrance to the complex. The walls are lower, in order to support barbettes and canon emplacements. One of the towers, in the southwest, along one of the false gates has battlements. To the southeast is, also, the Chapel of Senhor dos Aflitos.
The castle grounds are semi-/permanently occupied by cultural (museum historical and military architecture of Campo Maior); residential (part of the bulwarks occupied by residences, in the middle bulwark of São Sebastião there are gypsy communities); and equipment (part of the bulwarks occupied by storerooms and facilities for breeding of animals, as well as waste disposal).
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