The Lercaro family moved their residence to La Orotava and until the property where they lived in La Laguna was acquired by the Island Council to be used as a museum, for centuries it had various uses: military hostel, university classrooms, primary school, shoe store and the locksmith workshop of the Trujillo family. On the left side, on the corner of Tabares de Cala, is the house of the Jesuits, which began to be built in 1733, and the aforementioned Order was installed once the works were completed in 1737. Currently, it is the headquarters of the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country of Tenerife, founded in 1777, which has one of the most important libraries in the Canary Islands, an assembly hall, central patio and offices. The College of Doctors and Graduates of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, as well as the Esperantist Society of the Island, also has its headquarters in this building. The University of San Fernando, current University of La Laguna, with its Law classrooms and Faculty of Chemistry, He began his university activity in these facilities.
The Salazar House (Bishopric) began to be built in the 17th century, by Don Cristóbal Lázaro Salazar y Frías, first count of the Salazar Valley. The façade is considered the best of those preserved in the Canary Islands. The stone used was extracted from the quarry in the town of Pedro Álvarez in Tegueste. The aforementioned stone façade and baroque style was completed in 1687. In the rest of the building, renovations were carried out throughout the 17th and 19th centuries and the last ones in 1980. This building has a clear influence from the Palacio de Navas. It was the residence of General Lorenzo Fernández Villavivencio y Cárdenas (1723-1735), Marquis of Valhermoso, who decided to move the headquarters of the Captaincy General from La Laguna to Santa Cruz de Tenerife. It was also occupied for a time by the El Porvenir casino, until it was acquired by the IV bishop of San Cristóbal de La Laguna (1888-1894), Don Ramón Torrijos y Gómez, as the headquarters of the Episcopal Palace.
Previously, the bishops of the diocese did not have a fixed residence and stayed in various homes, such as the Casa de la Torre (Hotel Aguere). Bishop Folguera, on Bencomo Street and Brother Ildefonso Infante in the old convent of Santo Domingo.
In 2006, around noon on January 23, a fire broke out that destroyed the interior of this 17th century building, although fortunately the valuable stone façade remained intact. Currently, and since 2009, when it was completely rebuilt internally, this building once again housed the episcopal headquarters.
At the current number 26 is the diocesan bookstore, installed in a restored building next to the Bishopric.
In the building next to the Bishopric, the well-known Casa Román was built in the middle of the 18th century by Lieutenant Colonel Don Gabriel Román Manrique de Lara (1684-1749). This house was inhabited for several centuries by different relatives of the first owner, among them, “Colonel Don Luis Román Machado (1755-1841), defender of the Plaza de Santa Cruz in 1797, on the occasion of Nelson’s attack” (Cioranescu). It was also the headquarters of the studies of Agricultural Expert and Surveyor (Royal Orders of October 9, 1928 and June 10, 1930) and Shorthand and Typing (Royal Order of June 7, 1930). It was acquired on June 28, 1950, by the Island Council of Tenerife for 450,000 pesetas “paid in cash.” A year earlier, the counselor and professor Leoncio Afonso Pérez had prepared an extensive report on the poor state of the Polytechnic College facilities.
On April 5, 1921, one year after his death, by popular initiative and considered as a “benefactor of the students and the proletariat”, the plenary session of the Hon. San Cristóbal de La Laguna City Council unanimously agreed to place a plaque on the façade where Professor Don Quintín Benito y Benito lived and died.
Since 1994, the National Distance University (UNED) has been installed in this building.
On the same left side of the road, in the house on the corner of Juan de Vera, Antonio Hernández de Viana (Poeta Viana), historian, doctor and poet, was born. He studied Medicine in Seville, a degree that he finished in 1606. He provided his services as a doctor to the Cabildo of Tenerife and also in Gran Canaria. As a poet he wrote Antiquities of the Fortunate Islands, Conquest of Tenerife, Appearance of the Image of Candela. In the same house, during the last 20th century, the priest Don Maximiliano Darias Montesino, parish priest of the Mother Church of La Concepción, lived.
On the opposite corner, the Nuestra Señora de Los Dolores hospital was created in 1515, which absorbed the Santa María de la Antigua hospital founded on the initiative of the neighbors in 1505. In the 18th century this hospital was completely rebuilt in the old plot by the merchant Bernardo Fau, of French origin, who once his wife died dedicated his fortune to this charitable work. The administration passed at the beginning of the last 20th century to the Provincial Council and later to the Island Council.
The popular Sigut printing press was installed in a large building on the left side of this street, as you go up, in front of the Hospital de Los Dolores church. In the house previous to the one on the corner of Núñez de la Peña, the prestigious Lagunero cardiologist Mr. Enrique González González had his medical consultation for many years.
Most of the historic buildings on this street have been described as masterpieces of architecture of the time, one of them being the old convent of San Agustín, whose construction began in the early years of the 16th century and is known to have been completed. after the year 1509, by documents that prove that that year it was still under construction.
The convent of San Agustín was founded by two Augustinian friars who had been accompanying the Adelantado. In 1530 the monastery church had a single nave, until in 1765 the foundations of the new temple began to be built. The previous one was completely demolished, and was rebuilt in the following years, finishing on Easter Sunday, April 11, 1784. “The main author of this great reform, carried out despite numerous difficulties, was the prior friar Antonio Jacob Machado (1712-1784), who had the satisfaction of blessing the temple and died three days later, exhausted by fatigue and emotion,” says Cioranescu.
Over the centuries the convent church, created under the invocation of the Holy Spirit, was the provisional headquarters of the parish of La Concepción and Tabernacle of the Holy Cathedral Church.
This temple suffered a fire on June 2, 1964, completely destroying it, as well as the high-level images and the heritage complex that was inside.
