The Church of Nuestra Señora del Rivero in San Esteban de Gormaz has been an Asset of Cultural Interest since 1996.

Adored by the people of San Esteban, this church houses the venerated Virgen del Rivero, patron saint of the town, in whose honour the patron saint’s festivities are held, as well as the day of Concordia, on 1 May, when 30 villages come to the town with their banners and offer them to the Virgin.

It is a 12th-century Romanesque church with arcades, which follows the model of its neighbour San Miguel, and which stands on the top of a hill majestically presiding over the town of San Esteban de Gormaz.

It has a single nave, with a semicircular apse to the east and a porticoed gallery to the south. Later additions include the sacristy, the chapel of San Lorenzo, the Virgin’s dressing room and the belfry. Curiously, the construction of the sacristy has allowed the decorative elements of the northern part of the apse to be preserved intact, and it is possible to contemplate (accessed from inside the church) the characteristic chequered work, the decoration of the capitals and even stonemason’s marks in great detail.

The southern porticoed gallery has eleven capitals, eight to the south and three to the east. The five arches on the southern front and the two on the eastern side are original. As in the original church of San Miguel, the decoration is dominated by characters dressed in Islamic style, animal themes (birds of prey with their wings outstretched, sometimes devouring hares, snakes and canids, the lion devouring its prey) and plant decorations.

Inside the portico, to the left of the doorway leading to the nave, there is a 16th-century arcosolium integrated into the wall of the church, with a carpanel arch and the coats of arms of Don Diego II López Pacheco and Doña Luisa de Centurión y Bobadilla, the former with the quarters of the Pacheco and Enríquez families and the latter with the coats of arms of the Cabrera, Mendoza, Bobadilla and Noroña families.