The tower of the Hermitage of Santa María la Antigua is very high, measuring more than 20 metres, but you can already walk looking at the horizon through the Carabanchel district which, from the Eugenia de Montijo metro exit, cannot be seen. Furthermore, there is no sign of any sign indicating that, less than a five-minute walk away, lies the oldest Mudéjar hermitage in Madrid. It’s behind a fence and in the middle of an open field as if it were rubble that someone abandoned without regard to its value. It’s Tuesday and several neighbors go on a pilgrimage to the cemetery next to them and there are also those who take advantage of the car park that serves as a car park to repair their motorbike outdoors, at the gates of a 13th century building declared an Asset of Cultural Interest.
“It is in a non-place, as architects and urban planners say,” says Juan García Vicente, member of the Carabanchel, History and Heritage platform. “In front there is a razed esplanade where the Carabanchel prison was. But now there is nothing left. A jewel of Mudejar Romanesque there, far from any means of communication, is unworthy in every respect. If it were in another area of Madrid, more in the centre, it would certainly be more valued”, he adds.
For years, the neighborhood struggle has been calling for facilities for the neighborhood on these lands, which were also previously occupied by the penal center of the Franco regime, demolished in 2008. It is expected that housing, a hospital and green areas will be built there, but neighbors believe that the proposed urban project can be improved.
“We don’t want it to be a simple urban plan, but for it to be more personalized and for the hermitage to occupy an important place in this environment. It must be a place of reference”, explains García. One of the fears of neighborhood associations is that large residential blocks will be built very close to the temple and that it will be sandwiched between large buildings.
Neighborhood pressure has made progress, such as changes in the project Interni carried out last year: the replacement of a car road with a pedestrian corridor, the protection of a Roman aqueduct and the commitment to create a museum on Franco’s prison. “The success is that it is recognized as such that we are interlocutors, that the hermitage exists. We managed to make it known that we are there”, celebrates García.
However, the hermitage remains largely unknown in the neighborhood. “There are many people who live very close to there and don’t know it. There is not the slightest indication of the busiest area or where the subway is. And it is the least, because it deserves it, it deserves attention,” says platform member Carabanchel.
At least it no longer has graffiti-painted doors, and in 2019 it was restored to address its problems with leaks and other structural damage, but the open field around it is still used as a rubbish dump.
“A few weeks ago, huge bags of rubble appeared there that can only be moved with a crane. Even hundreds of wheels… The abandonment is notable. The cleaning services do not go beyond the limits of the hermitage and the rubbish that may be there is no one’s responsibility. If certain measures were put in place, a deterrent barrier and municipal services had access, these things could be avoided until it is definitively organised,” says García.
A few days after the interview with García, he wrote on WhatsApp: “Vereda de Aluche. Good news. There will be a barrier. Let’s do it!!! The proposal was approved by the Plenary Session of the Carabanchel Council.”
