This is the former convent church of St. Francis and these are the oldest parts of the site. Most of this stonework dates from the fifteenth century and the only element not exposed is the apse. That remains underneath the current Civic Centre, and the authorities have apparently decided not to demolish an entire public building in the interests of archaeological completeness. This feels restrained, if slightly disappointing for those of us who enjoy history but do not have to manage civic budgets.
I’m standing on a raised platform here that would have been within the church and those rectangles are graves which were placed in the nave, in the chapels and also outside the church. There was a single nave which was 13 metres wide, with six chapels on either side and they seem to have used all of the space available.
The side chapels were paid for by wealthier members of Bilbao society, who evidently wanted a little posthumous exclusivity and a good spiritual position for the afterlife. In the Catholic world of the period, burial close to altars and sacred spaces mattered, and the church was not about fairness, it was about money.
The remains of the original pillars are still visible, and it is striking how deep some of the tombs once went. There is just enough here to understand the scale of the church, but it has been changed so much, and indeed nearly entirely demolished, which makes interpretation just a little more difficult.