Hermitage of Saint Roch (Alicante)

Built on an old hermitage from the year 1559, the Hermitage of Saint Roch is a small temple that dates from the year 1869 and whose construction was motivated by the advanced state of abandonment of the previous one. The original hermitage had a single nave plan with three chapels on each side that did not externally show the buttresses and with semicircular arches, as well as an access entrance under the bell tower.

The 1869 reconstruction partially dismantled the transverse arches, raising them with a lowered arch section and showing false buttresses to the outside. The idea of its architect, Guardiola Picó, was to give the new hermitage a neo-medieval air.

Other changes that the new hermitage presented were a semicircular floor plan with a diameter smaller than the latitude of its nave, a bell tower with an almost square floor plan and a flared door that is currently blinded. Another very dramatic change was the opening of a new entrance that affected the symbolic arrangement of its apse, previously open towards Jerusalem.

The construction style used by Guardiola Picó included employing ashlar masonry and solid brick in the form of rectangular “verdugadas” to build the bell tower. This was something unusual and unique within the architectural style of Alicante at the time and is also found in part of the construction of the Bell Tower of Saint Nicholas.

Finally, the pyramidal wooden roof on the upper cornice protected by metal sheets stands out. Guardiola Picó included it to achieve a similarity to the bell towers of Villena dating from the 16th century.