More than two years of works have passed, and many more of reports, counter-reports, preliminary drafts and projects. Yesterday, finally, the Santa Cruz City Council received the rehabilitation work of the San Rafael and San Roque cemetery.
The acting mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, and the councilors, also acting, Carlos Tarife and Dámaso Arteaga, who changes the Consistory for the Cabildo, visited the final result of this space, which, starting in September, will reopen its doors to the general public. It will do so on specific days and times, but families, and also those who only want to visit this Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC), will be able to do so without the security limitations that have prevailed in all these years and that he left as the only date for visit him on November 1st.
The City Council’s intention is that, in collaboration with the Development Society, a guided tour of this space, which houses so much history, can also be organized at least once a week. The modifications carried out with respect to the original project, and in which some 800,000 euros have been invested, have had to do, among other things, with the actions foreseen in the initially approved project for the Calvario chapel, in which included the repair of its roof, although, once the work began, it was verified that the state of the same made its repair unfeasible, which made its demolition and subsequent reconstruction necessary. In this case, an attempt has been made to make the roof simulate those of the time when the cemetery was inaugurated, in 1891, made with straw. Something similar has happened with the rear rooms of the Catholic Gate, where the repair of its roof was collected, but when the work began it was found to be unfeasible, so it was demolished and rebuilt.
As Bermúdez recalled, “in this cemetery are buried people who have had to do with the history of the city, as well as the Island and who are part of our legacy for being protagonists of many important and transcendental events.”
In addition, he argued that “we hope that this good news for the municipality and for the historical heritage of this capital will be an attraction and a claim for residents, visitors and tourists, since we must remember that in this same space two parts coexist: the Catholic and the Anglican.
The work, which began at the beginning of 2021, after 20 years of waiting, had to be stopped in April of that same year after it was detected that the access ramp that connected the two parts of the cemetery, the Catholic and the Anglican, had to be relocated. It was resumed in October of last year. The flooring of the Anglican chapel, after verifying that the currently existing one is in a good state of conservation, has been polished and has not been changed.
Likewise, pedestrian paths have been opened, in which a continuous aripaq paving has been used, while the rest of the areas have been covered with decorative aggregate material. In terms of accessibility, a ramp has been built that joins both cemeteries, the Catholic and the Anglican, in the part where the annexes to the Anglican chapel were demolished.
Activities
The acting mayor pointed out that, after this rehabilitation, it will be easier to resume some of the activities, such as the concert that, in the hands of the San Rafael and San Roque Cemetery Funeral Park Association, was held every year coinciding with All Day the Saints. Also, he pointed out, “the logical thing would be that the Calvario chapel could be conditioned as a point of interpretation of the history of the Cemetery.”
The San Rafael and San Roque cemetery opened its doors in 1810 and officially closed in 1916, although it received its last burial in 1954.
