It was widespread in southern and central Spain, but was not known in the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula until the late nineteenth century.

From the late nineteenth century it was so considered, and a breed standard was drawn up in 1926 by D. Enrique P. de Villamil;[5]: 36  this was approved in 1930.

[1]: 625  Following the introduction of battery farming and imported commercial egg-laying hybrids, the Castellana Negra came close to disappearing.

It was included in the conservation programme for indigenous chicken breeds of the Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria, a public agrarian research institute, from 1975 to 2010.

[7] In 2009 there were some hundreds of Castellana Negra birds kept by the Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agraria, and about a thousand at the agricultural institute of the University of Valladolid at Soria.