I was encouraged by the Reproductions Museum to visit the nearby archaeological site at Heart of Mary Square in Bilbao, and I am pleased to report that I obeyed. It wasn’t clear to me if this site is routinely open to the public, I showed a ticket I was given and was escorted to this rather interesting little arrangement. This is the site of the old Convent of San Francisco, founded in 1498, including parts of its Gothic church, one of its cloisters and the Tertiary Room.
The convent did not have a quiet retirement after its closure in 1821 as the site was then used as a cemetery and a hospital, with the religious complex being mostly demolished over the next few decades. In 1865, the Cuartel del Príncipe Alfonso was built on the same site, replacing the vanished convent with military architecture and giving the ground yet another role in Bilbao’s history.
However, in 2005, the archaeological remains of the religious site were excavated and all remains of the former barracks, as well as the school buildings constructed in 1931 were removed. These photos show the former cloisters area and the survival of this helps give a shape to the rest of the remains.
I will come back to the ‘Giants and Bigheads’ in another post, because they deserve separate treatment and also because it is not every day that archaeology is interrupted by what appear to be enormous ceremonial people waiting patiently indoors.