GOYENA’S HOUSES AND GREEN CROSS CHAPEL
It is a representative group of estates built in the 18th century following the model of the Cádiz house linked to members of the mercantile bourgeoisie related to the Carrera de Indias.
A first floor was dedicated to warehouses and offices, the second floor or main floor was where the rich owner lived with his family, and the third floor was used as a residence for the servants and slaves, completed with a rooftop terrace.
The entire building is structured around luminous central courtyards where wells or cisterns are located. In its exterior, the magnificent baroque facades made of ostionera stone and the balcony closings stand out.
These estates were built in the middle years of the 18th century on the initiative of the wealthy businessman of Navarrese origin Juan Esteban de Goyena, who became, among others, Director of the Royal Provisions of Provisions of Provisions of the city of Cadiz.
Even today we can still see the heraldic coat of arms of the Goyena family on its façade. From the middle of the 19th century these baroque buildings became popular tenement houses where many humble families of the locality lived. Next to this group we can see a small chapel known as “de la Cruz” because in it a green cross is venerated.
This altar would be linked, as well as the name of the street “de la Cruz Verde”, to the existence in Puerto Real of a well organized structure of the Holy Leisure of the Inquisition. Some of its members lived on this street, such as the presbyter Agustín de Morales Rendón, notary of the Santo Ocio between 1688 and 1720.
