Hermitage of San Justo and Pastor

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Memory spaces · Year: 1536

This hermitage was located on the site that once housed the now disappeared Cine Cairasco. It was built in 1536 due to a catastrophic plague of alhorra (smut or parasitic fungus of cereals, especially wheat) in which the desperate farmers of the surrounding areas pledged to found an oratory if the calamity ended.  

The hermitage, which was one of the few things that came out unscathed after the Dutch attack that devastated Las Palmas at the end of the 16th century, was a simple single-nave construction, with a coffered ceiling in the Mudéjar style and a pointed arch doorway with Gothic reminiscences. 

During the 17th and 18th centuries it became a place of petitions and prayers against plagues and natural calamities that periodically ravaged the island (droughts, floods, etc.). 

In December 1659, images of Saints Justo and Pastor, erected on a gilded pedestal, were commissioned from the Gomera sculptor residing in Garachico, Francisco Alonso de la Raya. They were installed in the hermitage in 1662. 

We know that in 1873 the small religious enclosure was already closed to worship, since that year the Catholic Workers' Society requested its space as a social headquarters. A little later, in 1889, it was occupied by a musical group called Unión Filarmónica. 

At the beginning of the 20th century, in 1904, the building, already in a state of near ruin, became private property, being used for various purposes far from its original conception: dairy farm, carpentry, etc. Finally, in 1949 it was definitively demolished to make way for the construction of the Cine Cairasco, which after years of abandonment was also demolished in 2000 to build new housing.

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