San Martín Hospital

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Memory spaces · Year: 1481-1780

This was one of the founder hospitals in town, and was down to conqueror Martín González de Navarra in 1481, although in its actual founding, two other leading figures also collaborated with its development, namely councillor Juan de Herrera, son of Diego de Herrera, and Jorge de Vera, son of the conqueror and governor of the same name. It originally occupied some of the first houses built in the early days of the city, and was where the infirm were looked after. However, the building of the first church of Santa Ana meant these houses had to be demolished, so the centre was moved in 1489 to the east of the future temple, in houses that had belonged to cannon Jorge de Vera, where it remain for three centuries. 

The building stood on two floors, with a central courtyard and tiled roof, with a façade and main entrance via the small squares of  Álamos and Las Gradas. It had one room for men and another for women. It had a chapel in the grounds which looked over the alleyway of San Martín. The little church had a single nave, with a wood panelled roof, covered with gabled tiles and a small belfry. It also had a children's ward for new borns. Behind it was a plot which served as a cemetery, between the hospital and the episcopal seat. The doorway to the hospital featured a fine coat of arms of Los Vera. In the 18th century a new door arch was made, out of blue quarry stone, doing away with this coat of arms.

The old San Martín hospital remained in this place until 1780. In that year, patients were moved to a large building made for exactly this purpose in upper Vegueta. The primitive building was knocked down later on to allow a new church of Sagrario to be built on its plot, although this never actually came to fruition. In 2001, with excavation works to make foundations for the church there, the original structures of the base of the wall were found, as well as the hermitage's side walls and part of the former alleyway of San Martín.

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