Hermitage of Our Lady of the Incarnation of Tenoya

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Religious architecture · Year: S. XVIII

The temple is situated on a hill overlooking the edge of the Tenoya ravine, at a crossroads of the old royal road which for centuries was the only land route connecting Las Palmas with the various important agricultural centres in the north of the island.

The first reference to a place of worship in this area is the establishment of a small oratory, of which nothing remains today, under the invocation of the Virgin of Grace, built after the battle between indigenous people and Castilians in which the indigenous leader Doramas died in 1480.

After the completion of the Conquest, Tenoya, thanks to its abundant water and good conditions, became a prosperous centre dedicated to sugar cane cultivation. An important sugar mill was established here and around it a small population nucleus. To meet religious demands, a hermitage was established in the second half of the 16th century, initially under the invocation of Saint Peter. This remained for about a century until in 1695 a local landowner donated an image of Our Lady of the Incarnation, so from that moment the small temple changed its name.

It is known that around 1701 the hermitage began a process of renovation. Roofs and walls were repaired and years later it was extended to the side door of the current building. The construction took the form we can appreciate today around 1820, when it was expanded and renovated again.

The Hermitage of Our Lady of the Incarnation is a rectangular building with a single nave, with a two-pitched tied beam roof, a three-pitched and higher presbytery to allow in zenithal light. It has a rear section with a flat roof on a wooden structure, where the sacristy is located today. Here are the oldest elements of the building, such as the carved ashlar of the window and door. The front façade is white rendered with an access door of lowered arch framed in ashlar, as are the pilasters reinforcing the corners, topped by flowerpots. Above the cornice rises a gable with curved sides supporting the bell gable, also of ashlar, in which two semicircular arch openings are set.

Its state of conservation is good, having recently undergone maintenance intervention by the Cabildo insular.

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