The Tirajana Cart pays tribute to the Hermitage of San Fernando in the Pilgrimage of the Pine

The Department of Festivities and Events of the San Bartolomé de Tirajana Town Hall is finalising the preparations and details of the cart that will take part in the Pilgrimage in honour of the Virgen del Pino, in Teror, on Saturday 7 September. This year, the cart will pay tribute to the hermitage of San Fernando de Maspalomas, the oldest ecclesiastical heritage site after the Church of San Bartolomé, with a design by Manuel Encinoso. 

 

Yilenia Vega (CC), responsible for the Festivities and Events area, particularly highlights the participation of the neighbourhood's residents, who have met every afternoon at the premises, located in Plaza del Hierro, to organise different workshops, with the aim of making the decorative elements that will adorn the cart next Saturday: "This year we wanted to involve the residents of San Fernando, as those of Tablero were last year. The idea is that the different population centres of the municipality participate and get involved." 

 

 

In addition, as a symbolic and decorative element, one of the 4 replicas of San Fernando 'the Saint' that exist will adorn the float. Curiously, the original statuette was kept for 16 years by Carmencita, a resident of the patronage, into whose hands it fell, on the recommendation of the Countess of Vega Grande, after a robbery occurred from the nuns who kept it. "She would take it on the day of San Fernando and when it was over she would bring it back again," Carmencita says fondly. 

 

The San Bartolomé de Tirajana Town Council reminds residents that there will be free buses that will leave from the different neighbourhoods of San Bartolomé de Tirajana to Teror, facilitating the mobility and enjoyment of citizens during one of the most important traditional festivals on the island. “We encourage people to come and join us and enjoy such a festive day,” Vega encourages. 

 

 

The cart, which will parade in the traditional pilgrimage, will evoke the rich history of the hermitage, built at the end of the 1835th century. This building was the first place of worship in the area and housed the image of the saint who would later give his name to the town of San Fernando de Maspalomas. In addition, according to historian Gustavo A. Trujillo, the bell that accompanies it is the oldest in the town, cast in 1903. Originally, it was located in the Church of San Bartolomé, but when a new one was purchased in Barcelona in XNUMX, it was moved to its current location in the hermitage of San Fernando. 

 

Despite the scant documentation preserved from the period, the work carried out by several historians in the book 'The Tirajana region in the old regime' suggests that this construction was carried out by the parish priest Mateo Pérez de Villanueva and the Venetian captain resident in the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Gotardo Calimano.