It is Emperor Charles I himself who has the idea to build a system of coastguard towers, towers that would be used as military facilities for the protection of the territory along the Mediterranean coast, during the sixteenth century. From Alicante and Murcia to Almeria and Malaga. Most of these facilities were used until the nineteenth century.
In the town of Torre de la Horadada in Alicante, on the border that marks the boundary between the beaches of the Region of Murcia and those of the Valencian Community, part of the municipality of Pilar de la Horadada, we find one of the watchtowers.
Place and tower, built in 1580 on a previous tower, share the same name. The term "horadada" is based on two different facts, the first refers to the enclave of the tower itself, the Punta de la Horadada, a protrusion from land to the sea whose numerous caves, which are the product of erosion and sea winds, giving a pierced aspect to the landscape.
The structure, with a truncated conical base, has several windows and is topped by a battlement. The interior is accessed through a private residence and the floors through a central space that crosses it from top to bottom. Until the nineteenth century, the tower was used as a transmitter of optical telegraph signals, and despite certain alterations, its state of conservation is good. In 1905 it became the Palace of the Counts of Roche, a title of nobility of Castile, which, presented at the Town Hall of June 15, 1815, was issued in favor of D. Jose Antonio López de Oliver and his son, D. Antonio López de Oliver Tejedo de Teruel, owners of the Roche farm, in the Murcian municipality of La Unión, which has since been passed on to his successors.
The descendants of the Counts are the current owners of the tower, which was declared a Property of Cultural Interest and is under the protection of the Spanish Historical Heritage Act of 1985.