CHURCH OF JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH (SAN JOSÉ)
Popularly known as St. Joseph’s Church, its original name is the Church of Jesus, Mary and Joseph or the Holy Family.
Its construction is due to the initiative in the second half of the 18th century of the powerful guild of carpenters of the town and its brotherhood of San José, who wanted to build a new temple.
The works began in 1770 under the direction and project of the Cadiz architect Torcuato Cayón de la Vega, being continued after his death by his godson and disciple Torcuato Benjumeda until its completion in 1794.
Of neoclassical style, it is a three-nave hall temple with a dome in the transept and a crypt under the presbytery. The central nave is covered with a barrel vault and the lateral ones with groin vaults over which there are galleries open to the central nave. The transept is topped by a half-orange dome on pendentives, covered by an octagonal lantern.
The exterior has two facades of very sober decoration, with Tuscan pilasters on pedestals. The main doorway has a segmental arch of stone voussoirs and above it a large coat of arms with the initials J. M. J. (Jesus, Mary and Joseph), topping the main facade with a mixtilinear profile frontispiece reminiscent of baroque. Its tower consists of two bodies topped by cornices and spire.
After becoming the property of the city council in 1988, restoration work began in 1992 to become a cultural center, a function it has today, being one of the most important cultural spaces in Puerto Real, complemented by the adjacent Cultural Interpretation Center, inaugurated in 2016, with which it communicates and forms a cultural complex of extensive benefits.
This ancient temple has been declared an Asset of Cultural Interest in the Monument category since 1981.
