Zumarraga Town Hall
Culture [“Antio” or “La Antigua” Chapel ]
Until 1576 it was the first Parish Church of Zumarraga and there is no doubt that it constitutes one of the oldest buildings in this area.
Halfway through the 14th century Henry II of Castile conferred the right of trust of this parish church (known as “monastery” at that time) to Francisco Gómez de Lazcano by means of the right to perpetual ownership through inheritance.
Although by all accounts it used to be smaller than it is today, we believe that it was still a large building for the number of people living in Zumarraga at the time, and that is why it is thought to have been a centre of pilgrimage for people from distant villages located at distances of 15 km or more from our town. It is a clear example of Basque Romanesque architecture of which so few monuments survive into the present day (although we do come across architectural elements from the Romanesque-Gothic transition periods).
Its original Romanesque construction has no exterior buttresses, because it consisted of a building that was originally roofed and covered with timber.
It has a single nave, which is divided into three parts by six thick cylindrical pillars. In addition, it has two trusses at each end resting on the front walls of the stonework, corresponding to the presbytery and the gable end.
It is covered by a saddle roof. The choir and lateral galleries made up of a single wooden storey on small base tie-beams follow the traditional arrangement adopted in many typical churches of the region, in particular in the Northern (French) Basque Country.
In the area of its internal woodwork (tops of bases, corbels, joists) one can see characteristic wood carvings normally used in stelae, arches, lintels, etc.: wheels, swastikas, representing the sun and fire in their Celtic origin. The reliefs in which some of these enormous bases end are fascinating, because they have a human figure represented by heads and busts of women, some of them adorned with a “zapi” (a headscarf, in Basque), other figures have also been carved: one of a dragon is particularly striking.
This church had false domes and vaults that covered the inside until the end of the 1960s.
Halfway though the 1970s the sacristy and a house adjoining the church, known as the “seroretxea” (the house of the female sacristan in Basque), were pulled down. Once the demolition had been completed the discovery was made of a complete wall on the north façade of the original church, a Romanesque wall of tremendous archaeological importance and in which five large trumpet-shaped loophole windows have been salvaged. There are also other trumpet-shaped windows in the walls.
Two architectural elements that are also of great interest were built into the façade on the outside of the trapezium-shaped apse. This belonged to a period that was later than that of the front walls of the presbytery
- A Gothic Cross sculpted in sandstone in the tympanum of a small façade.
- A Gothic window that was salvaged after the restoration work. It has a wrought iron grille in the centre of the tympanum of a very similar composition to that which surrounds the Cross.
In both of the architectural compositions there is a stone boss with the following inscription in Gothic script: MCCCCLXXX.
Distances in km by road between the town and the principal cities:
| City | Distance from Antio or La Antigua |
|---|---|
| San Sebastián-Donostia | 53 kms. |
| Bilbao | 74 kms. |
| Vitoria-Gasteiz | 51 kms. |
| Pamplona-Iruña | 81 kms. |
| Baiona (Bayonne) | 99 kms. |
| Madrid | 410 kms. |
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