Back in the 1940s, my mother and her sister attended private English classes every week with a native teacher of aristocratic origins and exquisite manners. When the girls knocked on the door of the beautiful house located in Puerto de la Cruz, the elegant lady told them: “Inside.” Already in the living room she urged them to sit down: “Sit down, please.” And the little Spanish that the distinguished lady had learned came from the service that worked for her without any study and with few financial resources. There were many British families who settled here after the good weather echoed by the first English tourists who arrived in the mid-19th century to a small fishing village that was beginning to trade abroad and welcomed them without being prepared. for it.
A few years have passed since then and if we walk through its streets we can see that English influence. Doctor Ingram, Calle Blanco, Valois or Yeoward are just some examples of surnames of illustrious people who made important contributions to a society very different from the one they knew. I invite you to take a walk around the Port to look at some places that still speak to us today about that British past that we preserve and that sometimes we don’t even realize its importance. Emblematic places that have endured because there is a group of people who, under that influence, have made British culture endure.
The ‘La Chercha’ cemetery
Very close to the Rock is the first Protestant cemetery in Spain known as La Chercha, a derivation of the English word “churchyard”, which means cemetery. It is a place that was on the outskirts of the municipality and that today is surrounded by buildings and hotels next to the police station. National Police. Although the date 1757 appears in Roman numerals on its façade, the cemetery is actually from 1650, as indicated by numerous writings.
Since the 17th century, different nationalities have coexisted in this municipality, arriving as a consequence of the commercial activity first and its tourist attraction later. This colony of foreigners, mainly English, came to stay and therefore demanded infrastructure in line with their culture, religion, etc. Hence arises the need to find an ideal place to bury members of the Protestant community.
Alfred Diston is one of the personalities buried in La Chercha in 1861. He arrived on the Island in 1810 hired by the British Canarian wine exporting firm Pasley, Little & Co. A multifaceted character, he has left us an important legacy of drawings and manuscripts about the customs of the islands Canary Islands with the popular clothing of that time. He became the best host for scientists visiting northern Tenerife and a true reference also in the field of botany, managing the Botanical Garden. Perhaps many are unaware that he was also the introducer of the Cavendish banana variety. Diston, who at that time was in charge of the Sitio Liter estate, received some seedlings of that variety from Edinburgh and tested its productivity. After the decline of interest in cochineal and the rise of bananas, a significant increase in the export of this variety, highly demanded by the English, began.
A travel in the time
This story that would lead us to another report is told to me by John Lucas, owner since 1996 of Sitio Liter, a place that takes you to another time when everyone from Humboldt to Agatha Christie, the painter Marianne North and other prominent scientists walked through its gardens. like Charles Piazzi. Years later, other surrealist artists such as Eileen Agar, who spent several seasons there, would be inspired by those gardens. John, a descendant of the Littles who gave the Liter site its name, decided to open the house to the public so that visitors can discover this very special place. «If we stop to think, Puerto de la Cruz has more historical impact than even Santa Cruz, which can only count Nelson’s defeat and Franco’s departure for the beginning of the civil war. Puerto de la Cruz, on the other hand, was a reference in trade with the European continent and began the tourist development of the Island,” says John.
Peter Spencer Reid, also buried in La Chercha, arrived at the Port in 1854 to engage in trade and became the first to export bananas to England. A very enterprising man, he was also one of the shareholders of the Taoro Hotel, which began to be built in 1888 and is currently in the process of restoration. Taoro Park became the place chosen by the English community that began to build or buy homes in a privileged location with great vegetation that still retains a special charm. That was also the place chosen for the construction of the Anglican church of All Saints (All Saints’ Church) on land donated by the Taoro Company. Until then, worship was held in the home of Peter Reid, who was also British vice-consul. There, Ana Bencomo, Peter’s great-great-granddaughter, married there, who especially remembers her grandmother Anette Reid, known as Anita. On her tombstone is written the quote from Saint Matthew: I was a stranger and you let me in. He was a person dedicated to the care of many English people who came to the Island and when they grew older he accompanied them to the doctor, did their shopping, and brought them food. “I witnessed that dedication, recognized years later by Queen Elizabeth who presented him with a medal that she herself went to collect in London,” recalls her granddaughter. “There is always talk about her husband, Noel, but little about that important work that she carried out all her life.”
Fiona Jack’s story
Another woman, Fiona Jack, has just arrived in Puerto de la Cruz as a chaplain of the Church. It belongs to the Anglican Diocese of Gibraltar. She has only been here for fifteen days and already feels at home. She highlights that it is a very dynamic community and that her interest is undoubtedly to open up to the Porto society. Apart from worship, on Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m. and Sundays at 11:00 a.m., they organize a very popular market on the first Saturday of each month with second-hand pieces and clothes.
The British Library, built in 1903, is another emblematic place. We spoke for a while with Niki and Daphne, two volunteers who collaborate every Wednesday and Saturday to serve the members who find there much more than a library. This place is a meeting point for English people who live here and who have a good time talking and even taking Spanish classes. «At the moment we have 119 members, but we reached more than 400 in the 80s. But this has not been the lowest number. We have survived two world wars and a civil war. In 1941 we served only four members, including the president who was TM Reid. Currently and as a consequence of Brexit we have noticed a decrease in the number of members because there are many English people who can no longer spend long periods of time as was the case previously,” Daphne tells us. «The majority of members are elderly people and unfortunately there are few young people who go to this other temple of reading where about 20,000 rest. books in English waiting for new readers. It also has an extensive collection of movies and reports on DVD. “Many people come looking for classic movies that they cannot find on the platforms and in their original version.” The annual fee is 40 euros and “we try to organize different events to boost the center’s activity with theaterreading club, games, parties, etc.
Niki and Daphne miss the laughter of the children at Yeoward English School, very close to the library. Patricia Yeoward’s father was precisely the one who donated the land for that school, now closed, due to the need for an educational center for the English community. Antonio Yeoward arrived in Tenerife in 1964 to stay with his Spanish wife and two young daughters. His family already had commercial links with Puerto de la Cruz through the Yeoward Line company, which began in 1899 to offer the first regular passenger and cargo services from Liverpool to the Canary Islands, passing through Lisbon and Madeira. This company, in addition to bringing the first English tourists to the Island, also became the main exporter of bananas to the United Kingdom.
Antonio Yeoward was the promoter of the Botanical Hotel with a concept that was very respectful of nature, expressing his idea of making “a garden with a hotel inside” and not the other way around, as Patricia tells us, who also remembers “the hard moments experienced with the expropriation of the Hotel since one of its partners was Rumasa. He dedicated twenty years of his life fighting against the government until justice finally ruled in his favor. “My father was a real gentelman, an honest man who liked to work with the people here.” His favorite phrase was “business is people” because for him people were more important than business. Agriculture was another of his passions and in the 80s he grew red fruits, a novelty in this area. The field of soccer The Toscal-Longuera neighborhood also bears his name when those lands were given so that the boys could “play sports and not dedicate themselves to other things.”
We finished the tour by having lunch at Robin Hood, a restaurant located on the ground floor of the Bel Air building where you can go to a typical English pub and taste their most traditional dishes such as fish & chips or Yorkshire pudding. Wellcome!
The British Library of Puerto de la Cruz, one of the oldest documents it has in its display cases and, to the right, Niki, Daphne and other volunteers from this center of culture and knowledge.
