Omnium Sanctorum & Calle Feria
Why is it significant?
On the corner in front of you rises a sturdy tower of honey-coloured brick, its upper storey covered in a net of interlocking arches, like lace stretched over a wall. This is Omnium Sanctorum, the church of All Saints, and it guards the busiest corner of the old Macarena district.
Key Facts
| Place | Omnium Sanctorum & Calle Feria |
|---|---|
| Address | Calle Peris Mencheta, 41002 Sevilla, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 37.39920, -5.99130 |
| Part of Walk | The Macarena and the Almohad Walls: Seville's Barrio of Faith |
| Generated | Generated |
On the corner in front of you rises a sturdy tower of honey-coloured brick, its upper storey covered in a net of interlocking arches, like lace stretched over a wall. This is Omnium Sanctorum, the church of All Saints, and it guards the busiest corner of the old Macarena district.
When King Ferdinand III took Seville in 1248, he found a great Muslim city and very few churches. The new Christian parishes were built over the following century in a style Sevillians call Gothic-Mudéjar: Gothic doorways and vaults from the north, married to brick, horseshoe arches and geometric decoration from craftsmen trained in the Islamic tradition. That diamond-shaped net on the tower is called sebka, and you will find exactly the same motif on the Giralda, the old minaret of the cathedral.
Look closely at the stone and you may notice how fresh some of it is. In July 1936, in the first days of the Civil War, several churches in these northern parishes were set on fire, and Omnium Sanctorum was among them. The interior was gutted and had to be rebuilt. Then the military rebels took the working-class barrios of the Macarena by force, and the reprisals that followed left wounds the neighbourhood remembers to this day.
Now turn and look along Calle Feria. Every Thursday morning this street fills with a flea market that Sevillians simply call El Jueves, Thursday, and that claims roots going back to the Middle Ages. Old keys, cracked tiles, brotherhood medals, saints with chipped noses... If you want to understand this barrio, come early on a Thursday and watch grandmothers bargain over a plaster Virgin.
All along Calle Feria you will see shrines and posters for the Holy Week brotherhoods, because this is their heartland. And the most famous of them all is waiting at the top of the street. Follow Calle Feria north to its very end, where a basilica stands beside a yellow arch in the old city wall.