Hermitage of Consolation

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Sites of memory · Year: 1496

There is little doubt that it was in Santa Cruz where a proper Christian temple was first built in Tenerife, and this was probably the Hermitage of Consolation. It may have been built, roughly and quickly, in 1496 or even earlier, with the arrival of the conquering troops on the island. It was commissioned by the Adelantado Alonso Fernández de Lugo to the north of the camp, on a volcanic rock outcrop that jutted into the sea, near what is today Plaza de España.

It was possibly a small construction of adobe, rammed earth and a thatched roof. It stood until 1573, when it was demolished, after the Cabildo had committed to its reconstruction on a vacant lot on the left bank of the Barranco de Santos, where years later the Dominican Convent would be built. The reason for the relocation was to place the Castle of San Cristóbal in its place, since that point or outcrop, occupied by the hermitage, dominated much of the bay of what was still a small settlement at the time, but the key access to the island's main city: La Laguna.

Thus brief was the existence of this first religious building with which Santa Cruz was endowed. Only the oldest Marian image in Tenerife remains from it, the small Gothic-Renaissance sculpture of the Virgin of Consolation, probably brought by the conquerors and today preserved in the parish of La Concepción in this city.

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