Royal Customs House

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Sites of memory · Year: 1742

Initially, the first customs offices on the island were established in La Laguna, but in 1585 the Cabildo had decided to move them to Santa Cruz, the port and place through which goods subject to duties entered and left. Thus, at the beginning of the 17th century, rudimentary customs offices began to operate in private houses, for which rent was paid, located at the beginning of La Caleta street, very close to the port of that time.

It was the controversial intendant Cevallos who in 1718 requested from the Cabildo a suitable place to establish the new Royal Customs House, an institution responsible for controlling the movement of goods subject to tariffs, especially tobacco, from which great profits were obtained and which the new Bourbon administration wanted to centralise and control.

The following year, works began to house the offices, warehouses and customs deposits. A military-use plot forming part of the Concepción battery was chosen, adjacent to the landing stage of the Blas Díaz cove. Soon the works were interrupted as it was considered that the construction compromised the defensive system of the port. In any case, what little had been erected until then was completely ruined due to a fire that occurred on 20 July 1727.

The new and definitive Customs House building was constructed between 1742-43. It was located in the same place as the previous one, very close to the sea. It was a huge square-plan building with two floors. It had a sober façade with the main entrance on La Caleta street, where there was a large door framed by Lanzarote stone, topped by a coat of arms of the royal arms of the new Bourbon dynasty, the work of the stonemason from La Orotava Juan Alonso. Inside, the building had a central courtyard that distributed the spaces by means of long corridors; it also housed a small chapel.

This Customs House stood for two centuries after resisting fires and numerous renovations. Besides housing its own function, it also served sporadically as an occasional maritime passenger station. In 1930 it ceased operations and in 1943 it was demolished to make way for a new road restructuring of the area and the Post and Telegraph building.

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