Ambite is a hillside village in the Tajuña valley that was inhabited before the arrival of the Romans. The streets that best express the traditional architecture of the region are around the Plaza Mayor, with steep twists and turns, alleys and historic fountains. In the square is the Town Hall, which has a façade with arcades and a beautiful clock tower, and the 16th-century church of the Assumption, which houses a relic of the Vera Cruz or Lignum Crucis, an original splinter of the cross of Christ brought from the Holy Land by the legendary Knight of Ambite. A notable building in Ambite's heritage is the baroque palace of the Marquises of Legarda, from the 17th century, when the town of Villahermosa de Ambite was established. Next to it is the Encina de Ambite, a century-old specimen declared a unique tree by the Community of Madrid. On the banks of the Tajuña there is another monumental oak known as the Encina de la Huerta de la Vega.