 The
Convento de Nuestra Señora de las Virtudes (Our
Lady of the Virtues), built in the 16th century, with one
nave on a Latin cross plan and side chapels. The roof is
vaulted ove perpendicular arches with a superstructure
held by large flying buttresses. The cross is covered with
a sectioned hemispherical vault and at its centre, dominating
the main altar, is a carving of the ducal shield of the
House of Medina Sidonia. The whole of the vault is carved
in quarried stone with concave polygon features and heraldic
bosses typical of the Renaissance. The main entrance is
a Roman arch flanked by two pairs of Doric columns, with
friezes and geometric designs of the Doric school, which
frame the doorway and support the body of the church. The
tower has two parts, the upper capped by a pyramidic shape
clad in tiles. In the lower part of the tower we see a
vaulted niche with a limestone statue of Santa Catalina.
The sacristy is covered by a quarried stone vault which
has carved in its centre the motto of the Order of Saint
Francis: ‘Charitas’, charity.
 The Baluarte,
or walled battlement, has at its corners and turns buttresses
and lookouts used as defensive positions
for guards and artillery. One of these, which also names
a local street, can be seen magnificently restored at 26
calle Extramuros.
The greater church of Santa Catalina,
closed for services and in a lamentable state of disrepair
dominates the square
and gardens of the same name.
Since the 15th century, when the first church was built
on this site, many works and renovations have altered the
church. In 1886, parish priest Francisco de Paula
Fernández-Caro began
the works on the church we see today. The works took six
years and involved the complete renovation of the earlier
building, from the floors up. The plans and works were
overseen by Juan Bautista Olivares of
neighbouring Chiclana, municipal architect of Cádiz
at that time, and he donated his time and work to the church
as a gift. Before
the works were finished, he left for Buenos Aires due to
health problems. The works were completed under father
Caro and
chief surveyor Cayetano Cano, also from
Chiclana.
The result was a building of respectable dimensions, although
in a little-defined architectural style that mixed neoGothic
with neoMudéjar, fruit of the eclectic mood of the
epoch, and a prelude to the coming era of modernism.
 The
new building soon began to display faults, due largely
to problems with the land it was built on, and the spiralling
cost of repairs led to it being closed as a church in 1930.
It still awaits restoration today, where its ruined state
is more the result of its abandonment than any problems
dating from its original construction.
Torres Almenaras de la Costa (coastal
watchtowers)
 More
literally ‘fire towers’, these formed a medieval
defence system using fire to signal from castle to fort
and the mounted guards on their daily patrols of the coast.
Now abandoned, in their day they watched the coast in a
chain running from Ayamonte on the Portuguese border to
Gibraltar.
On the border between Conil and Chiclana is the Torre
del Puerco, pig tower, with a cylindrical structure 8m
high and with two vaulted ceilings.
Along the coast towards Conil and on the cape of the same
name, la Torre de Roche, with a square base and built in
the second half of the 16th century, was until a short
time ago reasonably well preserved. Converted to a navigation
lighthouse, its adaptation has led to a change in its appearance
that has lost its original form and intent.
The next tower on this coastline, now disappeared, was
called the Torre Blanca, on a site now known as Puntalejo.
 Now
in Conil, at the start of the route to Cádiz,
on the clifftop, Torre Atalaya (Arabic
for watchtower), has also disappeared and its actual site
is now occupied
by a white masonry post used as a navigation bearing by
fishermen and during the annual tuna harvest. It follows
the Torre de Guzmán mentioned earlier
and, finally, in the middle of the town, the Torre
de Castilnovo is of
major importance and, like the Guzmán tower, had
a double function: as a defensive outpost and to assist
the tuna harvest that carries its name. Forming a part
of a walled area, the small fortress of the Alcaide, Arabic
for captain, an officer with a role and a vote in the council
of Conil. The fortress was destroyed by a tsunami on 1
November 1755.
These towers, using a system of smoke and fire signals,
served to both alert the neighbouring population of danger
but also to remind them of the need to stay alert. With
the passage of time they fell into disuse and became mute
witness to a past filled with apprehension of the sea.
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About
Conil
The
Torre
de Guzmán tower, built around
the year 1300, was the nucleus around which the new town
of Conil developed in the 14th and 15th centuries, with
its major buildings rising in nearby
streets and squares such as the Plaza Mayor: the parochial
church of Santa Catalina, the local council building,
or Cabildo, the grammar
school and the principal offices of the officials and
governors of the Ducal seat. In those times the castle
(as was) had a belltower whose
bell was rung to gather inhabitants for the ‘Cabildo Publico’, the
public court, with the ‘campana tañida’, a particular
carillon that would announce there was town business
to be discussed. This plaza, also know as the plaza of
Santa Catalina, was the site of
all the public debates in Conil life until the middle
of the 19th centruy, when the authority was moved to
offices in the Plazuela (little square),
also called the plaza of the Constitution and then the
Plaza de España,
nerve centre of Conil itself.
