Santa María del Águila's Church (Our Lady St. Mary of the Eagle)

WAS THERE A MOSQUE AT ITS LOCATION PREVIOUSLY?

Originally Santa María Church constituted the parish church for the parishioners group of the same name, inside the Castle walls and core of the Village of Alcalá from its founding by the end of 13th century. Traditionally it is supposed that there was a mosque previously at the same location, although this fact has not been confirmed.

The Church's building shows a characteristic design own of parish churches of Sevillian Mudejar style of the 13th-14th centuries. It has three naves, standing out the central one, with an elongated head with buttresses looking outside and a projected front with the lancet arch. In head of the southern nave an interesting fresco is preserved depicting Saint James and Saint Matthew, this late one Patron of the village, Gothic work datable from between the 14th and the 15th centuries. Equally singular are the situation of the bell tower, exempt from the building, and the fleur-de-lys carved on the head of the Church.

Between the 18th and the 19th centuries the building undergoes an intense reform, belonging to this phase the southern, neoclassical- style front. After 1936 coup d'état and the subsequent popular reaction, the church was set fire to, losing its roofs totally, and causing a new restoration carried out in the 1940s by the architect Félix Hernández, who also worked on the tower, giving it its present-day Mudejar look.

The Church keeps inside Santa María del Águila's image, Saint Patroness of the town and object of a singular procession every August 15.