Church of Santa María de la Oliva

Chapter 4/12 · Villaviciosa

This is Santa María de la Oliva, which locals also call Santa María del Conceyu: the oldest building in Villaviciosa. It was built after the town was founded, in the last quarter of the 13th century or the early 14th, in the transition from Romanesque to Gothic, and it was the parish church until the 19th-century confiscation of church property. It has been a National Monument since 3 June 1931.

Look at the main doorway, facing west: four slightly pointed arches and columns with carved shafts showing the Annunciation and six saints, figures that were mutilated in 1936, during the Civil War. In the tympanum is the Virgin and Child, already fully Gothic, and above it a 15th-century openwork rose window. Inside, the nave has a timber roof, the chancel is vaulted, and five arched tomb niches open in the walls.

Now we go down Calle del Agua to the little square with the monument to Charles I.

← Riera Theatre and La Manzanera · Charles I Square and the palaces of Calle del Agua →