Source: PalomitasdeMadrid

En 365 days in Madrid We try to let you know stories and places of Madrid, some very well known and popular, others much less so because they are located outside the tourist itineraries or simply because they have not been sufficiently valued. This last Sunday of the year we want to give you one of those surprises: the hermitage of Santa María la Antigua in Carabanchel. It is located at the confluence of Calle del Monseñor Óscar Romero with Camino del Cementerio, next to the wall of the Carabanchel Cemetery. To get here a good option is the metro, the Eugenia de Montijo station on line 5 is very close. Also very, very close to the vacant lot where the Carabanchel prison was located, demolished in 2008. The state of conservation of the area , quite degraded and with that appearance so common in the peripheral areas of Madrid of abandoned space, little care, it hides and makes it difficult to recognize the value of the heritage it treasures. Let us try to shed some light on it.

We preserve in Madrid some elements of the work of those magnificent Mudejar builders who worked in the city and throughout the territory after the arrival of the Christians at the end of the 11th century. In the Community of Madrid, the examples of Camarma de Esteruelas, Valdilecha or Talamanca del Jarama. In the city of Madrid they are well known: the tower of the Church of San Nicolás, the tower of the St. Peter's Church and a civil building Tower and the House of Lujanes and our protagonist today, Santa María la Antigua, built in the 13th century, was the parish of the town of Carabanchel, at the time dedicated to Santa María Magdalena. After the founding of the Carabancheles, Carabanchel Alto and Carabanchel Bajo as independent towns, it ceased to be a parish church and was converted into a hermitage.

Santa María la Antigua has a rectangular plan and is small in size, but it has the great value that it has been preserved practically complete, with its primitive architecture. It was made in Toledo Mudejar, on a previous temple as recent archaeological excavations have revealed to us and which was the one frequented by San Isidro. These excavations have also shown us many Roman remains and Carpetan objects that tell us that this place has been inhabited since the most remote past.

The head is oriented facing east as is typical in medieval churches. It has a semicircular apse, with a quarter-sphere vault, which is joined with the main body by a rectangular section in the presbytery.

Masonry and brick make up the entire work. The naves are covered with a wooden roof, a material that also makes up the interior decoration, of which we must highlight a beautiful and simple Mudejar ceiling, a simple but elegant coffered ceiling. Some remains of medieval paintings have been preserved in which the predominant colors are red and black.

The façade is fantastic with three semicircular archivolt arches, the central one lobed. The tower is also very well preserved, rectangular, solid except for the bell tower part and is 20 meters high.

The church was designed by architect Pedro Iglesias He was in charge of restoring and rehabilitating the hermitage from 2000 to 2002.

A forgotten gem in Carabanchel that is well worth a walk, although seeing it inside does not seem very easy, in principle it opens on Saturdays at 11 am.

A abrazo.