García de Castro founded the Dominican convent in Uclés in 1535. It originally stood outside the town walls, next to the chapel or church of Santo Domingo de Silos (near the so-called “fountain of the five spouts”).
When the convent flooded, the nuns had to move to a building within the walls of the town, adjacent to the parish of La Trinidad.
The church of La Trinidad stood on a street of the same name in the 12th-century medieval part of the town, abutted to the first ring of walls. The building must have been simple but robust and solid because stone was used in the construction. Like many other parish churches, it almost certainly would not have had a tower, and it would have looked dark and gloomy. The entire roof would have been made of wood. A wall with a cornice, a window, an arch and part of another wall are the only remaining elements from the original building and are preserved inside the present-day building.
In 1706, Philip V visited the church of La Trinidad and the Dominican nuns and a royal audience was held. Just before the Peninsular War, little more than twenty Dominican nuns lived at the convent. According to the records, the convent was still in use in 1821 because on 3 September of that year a statue of Our Lady of Defence was entrusted to the nuns for safekeeping and preservation.
Some of the town’s elderly residents still refer to the alley in front of what was the convent as “nuns’ alley”.