1669 - Menni’s Map of Gibraltar - Section 3
As old as the hills, it may even have been created as part of the 14th century Islamic plans during the expansion of the town southward. It also appears to have had no particular name and is mostly referred to in older documents as “la Plaza de esta Ciudad” or similar.” Other smaller local squares were usually known as “Plazuelas”.
Taken from a 16th century document
Before 1704, the word “Gibraltar” was often used by itself to refers to “el Campo de Gibraltar” which included – and still does - a large part of the hinterland and not only the Rock itself. It actually included not just the Bay area as shown on the plan below, but several districts which included the lands of Tarifa to the west and of Jimena de la Frontera to the North.
The word Campo is very appropriate in this case. In English it can be translated as a “field” or the “countryside”. Right up to the year when Menni’s map was published and well beyond, a large proportion of the population that lived on the Rock went to work daily to tend to their farms, gardens and vineyards during the day, returning in the evening to the Rock in what was to them in many ways, a dormitory town.
Alonso Hernandez del Portillo, writing in his "Historia . . . about the notorious so-called Turkish raid on the Rock in 1540 had this to say:
. . . the Turks arrived on the east side of the Rock and well away from town. Autumn was a period in which most of the workers in town were busy at work on the grape harvest in the Campo area. The town was relatively empty of people. (my translation)
The gardens and vineyards of the countryside along the Bay of Gibraltar which formed part of the Campo de Gibraltar (1712 – Gerard Van Keulen)
Plataforma de San Diego developed into Wellington Front (North demi-Bastion)
G. “Puesto de San Antonio”
Plataforma de San Antonio
H. “Puesto de San
The Plataforma de San Francisco was developed into Wellington Front (South demi-Bastion)
San Francisco bastion was built right in front of “El Convento de San Francisco” (f) as shown on Menni’s map, hence its name. But I can find no mention elsewhere of any Bastion in Gibraltar named San Antonio – although there was one in Algeciras – which is not much help.
Ángel Sáez Rodríguez in his La Montaña Inexpugnable . . . also offers his readers a similar plan summarising the position of Gibraltar’s Line Wall batteries
Portillo tells us:
Era esta Santa Iglesia a lo que parece Mezquita Morisca, como lo muestra la fábrica que está en el patio de los naranjos.
Artists impression of what it might have looked like in the early 17th century (Unknown)
Most of the Patio de los Naranjos was destroyed when the British decided to straighten the bend in Main Street caused by that part of what they called “the Spanish Church”
It is also generally agreed that the mosque was ordered to be built by the Merinid leader, Abu-l-hasan. This on probably based on the following written by Ibn Juzayy in the 14th century.
Abu-l-hasan . . . began to give his attention to repairing its buildings . . . spending immense amounts of money in building houses and magazines, as well as a Jámi or principal mosque . . .
According to a 14th century document known as Zahrat al-As, written by the Moroccan author Ali al-Yaznai, one of the first things Abu-l-hasan did after his arrival on the Rock was to order his son Abu Malik to remove a great ten hundredweight bell from the main church and have it sent it to Fez. Once there it was reshaped as a lamp and was hung in front of the gate called Bab al-Kutubiyin in the Mosque of al-Qarawiyyin. Apparently it is still there.
Gibraltar bell lamp in the Mosque of al-Qarawiyyin
And the question therefore is – where the hell did this bell come from?
Z. “El Convento de la merced”
Also known as the Convento de la Señora de la Merced, it extended from Calle de la Carniceria which is what the southern of Irish Town was called - to Calle Real.
This was the HQ of a Catholic religious order which went by the rather flamboyant name of the Real y Militar Orden de Nuestra Señora de la Merced Redención de Cautivos – or perhaps Los Mercedarios if you really wanted to save time - but their longer name deserves an explanation.
A look at a map will convince most people that Gibraltar is ideally placed as a base for anybody involved in negotiating the release of a hostage held in North Africa . Not something that happens too often now but it was a commonplace in the 16thand 17th century - and well beyond - when the Straits of Gibraltar and the northern Mediterranean were infested with corsairs. Over the years these gentlemen developed a nasty if lucrative habit of capturing and enslaving Christians, only agreeing to release them after the payment of a hefty ransom.
Negotiating these ransoms was fraught with difficulties – a mistake could cost you your life. Little wonder that those who were rich enough and were prepared to pay, usually turned to intermediaries for help. In Spain and later in Gibraltar, these intermediaries were invariably members of los Mercedarios.
Francisco Javier Quintana Álvarez in his wonderful article on El Convento e Iglesia de Santa Ana . . . made the following comment on the design of the monastery building
. . . se advierte, como único elemento significativo, el almohadillado y el color natural de los elementos constructivos de la puerta en contraste con el enlucido blanco de la fachada. Sobre dicha puerta había una hornacina, en la que debía haber una imagen de Santa Ana, y sobre ésta una gran ventana que iluminaría la nave principal.
By the early 18th century the Mercedario’s had long left and the British who knew the building as either the White Convent, White Cloisters or Admiralty-House were using it as lodgings for naval officers and as a store.
Plan of White Cloisters – The road running horizontally at the bottom is Irish Town (Mid-18th century – James Montressor)
According to Portillo,
La Cofradía de la Santa Vera Cruz tiene una buena y alegre Iglesia en la Calle Real.
Menni positioned the letter caption (a) for the Vera Cruz on a building cornering Main Street and a narrow lane leading eastwards which is probably today’s Horse Barracks Lane. During the early and mid-20th century it was the site of a bar and nightclub both of which continued to be both “buena” and “alegre”.
Going back a bit, a couple of decades after the taking of Gibraltar there were few Catholic friars still stationed on the Rock after its capture by the Anglo-Dutch. They had all either died or had decided that there wasn’t much in it for them in British Gibraltar. The friars of Veracruz were no exception. Those who were still around packed their bags and left the church for good. According to E.R. Kenyon writing in 1911, this is what happened next.
The Church of the Confraternity of the True Cross was converted into a barracks between 1726 and 1746. The site is that which is now occupied by the Café Universal as appears from a comparison of the Crown Lands Register and Bishop Scandella’s letter in which he says it was “in the Main Street on (the) site of Mr Weir’s Present wine stores: the Government sold the building to Mr Breciano” and with the 1736 plan which shows on a site now occupied by that a chapel at the junction of Horse Barracks Lane and the Main Street. Probably it was from this building after its conversion into a barracks that the lane derived its name.
The Café Universal and above it the Embassy Night Club, both of them on the corner of Main Street with Horse Barracks Lane the site previously occupied by “ La Veracruz”
Probably el Convento de Santa Clara if we can trust Portillo:
El Monasterio de Santa Clara es de monjas y grande recogimiento y observancia, tanto que los Frailes de San Francisco a quien está subordinado, afirman ser el de mayor santidad y recogimiento en su Provincia. . . y va creciendo en número de Religiosas con la santidad y bondad que hemos dicho.
There were no less than 75 of these “religiosas” when they left the Convent and Gibraltar for good in 1704 and took refuge in Jimena. The Convent had been founded as a Franciscan establishment in 1586 by two very pretty and very rich young sisters – Maria and Isabel Espinosa who were tenuously related to Portillo.
Originally they sisters seem to have made use of the Ermita de Santa Ana, a small church which may have given or taken the name of its address in Calle Santa Ana – today Irish Town.
In 1587, however, the two Espinosa sisters inherited their father’s town house and converted it into a Convent. They named it the Monasterio de Santa Clara.
Monasterio de Santa Clara – as per Luis Bravo de Acuña on the left (1620s) and James Montressor on the right (mid-18th Century)
From 1726 to 1746 it became Bedlam Barracks which in turn gave its name to Bedlam Court. It was eventually bought from the Government by Giovanni Maria Boschetti, Gibraltar’s 19th century iconic architect.
The building in the corner of Bedlam Court and Main Street in the mid-20th century once the site of the Monasterio de Santa Clara. The “modern “ building may have been designed by Giovanni Boschetti. The wooden Genoese shutters on all those windows are distinctively his.
Also known as San Juan de Letrán . A very well-off and much frequented church on the South side of the Plaza de las Verduras – today’s Cornwall’s Parade)
This church must have been a branch of the Catholic Basilica of San Giovanni at the Laterano in Rome – one of the oldest in the world. In Gibraltar the church was founded in the 16th century or even earlier. The oldest known mention is by Anton Van Den Wyngaerde in his well-know map of the Rock dated 1567.
Portillo had this to say about the church.
Hay en esta Ciudad una Iglesia de San Juan de Letrán de razonable edificio y grandeza. Tiene Prior y Clérigos Capellanes; aunque no Parroquial está subordinada a la Iglesia y Colegio de San Juan de Letrán en Roma. Tiene un Capilla donde se ganan las mismas indulgencias y jubileos que en la de Roma.
These “Indulgencia” was in effect a remission of punishments due in purgatory for one’s sins There were several ways of getting one of these. In Rome it was possible to do so simply by entering the basilica of St. John on an appointed day and going through the usual rituals of confession, communion and so forth.
I don’t know whether the Gibraltar church followed this procedure or not but there is little doubt that if so these indulgences would have made it extremely popular with the local population - practically all of them Roman Catholics – most of them undoubtedly sinners in the eyes of the church.
It was, however, a system that lent itself to abuse. During the later Middle Ages the unrestricted sale of indulgences by various churches was a commonplace and much as I would like to believe otherwise such a practice was probably as unexceptional in the local church of San Juan de Letrán as anywhere else.
San Juan de Letrán was in Cornwall’s Parade which was known during the Spanish era as la Plazuela de San Juan/Plazuela de San Juan de Letran (Early 17th century - Luis Bravo de Acuña - cropped and adjusted)
The two buildings on either side of the canopied stall right at the back of the Parade as shown on the sketch above, would have once been the Church of San Juan de Letrán - Locals in the early 19th Century called the Parade, la Plaza de las Verduras (1820 – Henry Sandham)
d. “El ospital de San Juan de Dios”
Portillo:
Hay más en esta Ciudad otro hospital donde se cuidan las enfermedades de bubas y llagas el cual fundó un hombre llamado Juan Mateos, que fue primero ventero de Albalate . . . Vivió y murió en esta Ciudad y en ella se tiene en opinión de santo. . . Nombrase este hospital Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados, que hoy lo tienen los Padres de Don Juan de Dios, y se llama de Nuestra Señora de la Salud. . . Vivió y murió en esta Ciudad y en ella se tiene en opinión de santo.
Albalate near San Roque
Yes indeed, according to Charles Montegriffo a local medical historian writing in the British Medical Journal in 1978, Juan Mateos was :
. . . probably the most colourful medical personality ever to inhabit these shores
Although not mentioned by Montegriffo, the hospital was itself a complex which included both a church and a convent which might account for the various names attributed to it over time as well as the fact that the building which housed it was uncommonly large by Gibraltar standards. This and the fact that it was built well away from the main town ensured that it is invariable easily identifiable on many pre 20th century maps.
The “hospital” - caption 40 - by now probably a military building known as the Blue Barracks (1762 - J.Gibson)
San Juan de Dios was the second oldest hospital in town, the oldest being El ospital de la Misericordia which appears as (e) Menni’s map. (See also below) Interestingly, Modern research has suggested that the Hospital of San Juan de Dios was actually used as an isolation hospital for people suffering from anything that at the time were thought of as contagious diseases and that the general one was the “Hospital de la Santa Misericordia” which stood on the site of the present City Hall.
La Misericordia was the first hospital to be set up in Spanish Gibraltar. It was later followed by the larger perhaps more well-known “ospital de San Juan de Dios” mentioned above (see d. above)
According to Portillo:
. . . . en la Plaza Mayor donde está un hospital nombrado de la Misericordia, donde se curan muchos heridos y enfermos de diversas enfermedades, excepto de bubas, (yaws or perhaps syphilis) con mucha caridad; y es muy antiguo; y se crían niños expósitos (foundlings). . . .
A number of local historians have long been of the opinion that this hospital occupied a large building on the east side of Main street immediately opposite today’s John Mackintosh Square. Others have offered an alternative suggestion. It had been built on the western side of the same square more or less where the City Hall now stands.
Menni’s map, however, puts the cat among the pigeons by apparently placing the hospital in the corner where City Mill Lane – once known colloquially as Calle de las Siete Revueltas - joins Main Street rather than the larger building on the opposite side of City Mill Lane. The suggestion that it might have occupied the extreme western side of the Plaza can also be dismissed if the buildings shown here on the map are in fact the Governor’s residence (as Menni suggests in his caption for pp.)
All of which is somewhat unsatisfactory for the following reasons:
The actual building seems too small to be able to cope with all those tasks outlined in my quote from Portillo – at least half the ground floor is taken up by the cloister. It also requires some stretching of the imagination to accept that its address was La Plaza (Parade) as suggested by Portillo rather than Main Street.
The problem would of course be solved if (e) was simply a small church used by the Friars who ran the hospital and the large imposing building across City Mill Lane was that part of it that actually functioned as a hospital.
(1627 – Luis Bravo de Acuña – cropped and adapted)
The “Convent”, The present day residence of the Governor of Gibraltar.
Portillo was uncertain as to when the monastery was founded in Gibraltar but suggested 1490 as a likely date. As regards its original address:
Tenían su monasterio que fue el primero de esta orden que hubo en este obispado de Cádiz en aquel tiempo estos Padres, donde ahora está parte de la huerta, y llamo se aquello San Francisco el Viejo. . .
El año adelante de 1528 como yo lo oí decir a hombres viejos de esta Ciudad, por tener los Religiosos más comodidad y más larga huerta trasladaron su Monasterio a la parte donde hoy está el refectorio, como todos conocimos.
In effect it appears that in 1528 they moved into the building we know today simply as the as "the Convent" which appears on Menni’s map. But where was the original monastery?
During the mid 20th century John Mackintosh Hall was built along the extreme south-western corner of Main Street. During the preliminary excavations a number of skeletons of people holding rosaries were discovered.
El Convento de San Francisco on the left with its large courtyard and an area that possibly depicts at least two largish “huertas” to its right (Early 17th century – Luis Bravo de Acuña – cropped and adapted)
The John Mackintosh building was constructed in an area shown as the smaller of the two orchards shown on Bravos plan and known as the "huerto de Cebreras" in Portillo's day. My guess is - and it is only a guess - that this might have been the site of San Franccisco el Viejo.
However, Portillo not being particularly clear, the new monastery may simply have been an extension or enlargement of the old.
This is the first time I have come across a plan or map that identifies the Governor’s residence prior to 1704.
qq. “Los cuarteles para la infantería que están por acabar”
To view each section in detail, together with my comments where possible, please click on the following links.
With many thanks to my digital friend Rafael Fernández. Without his endless help and advice I would not have been able to write these essays on Octavio Menni's map of Gibraltar.