Devotees and neighbors generally Alguazas Township will honor the Immaculate Conception dedicating at 19 pm this Friday, December 7, the eve of his feast, an offering of flowers while Saturday morning at 11:30 hours morning, the parish church of San Onofre in the town will host a Mass in honor of the Virgin whose term will begin a procession with the image, based on the mentioned temple, will end his tour in the Hermitage is the titular patron.
The cult of the Immaculate Conception has a long tradition as evidenced Alguazas historical sources that date in 1703 the first references to this devotion mentioning that already this year could be said the shrine that houses the image of Marian devotion , known as donations to the Brotherhood of Our Lady of Conception, holder thereof.
In 1716 the factory book you can read The parish has a church of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción and a bancalillos.
The bancalillos portions of land would be near the atrium of the small temple.
In any case the construction of this place of worship must have had its primitive origins in the early eighteenth century and that after the War of Succession, finished in 1713, the population of Alguazas had suffered a major decline due to continued effective that contributed to the race to support the bishop of the diocese, Cardinal Belluga, in its support to the Duke of Anjou, pretender to the Spanish throne.
In 1796 the chapel became the main burial due, probably, to the works taking place in the parish of San Onofre, which since 1790 addressed some expansion work and whose space entarramientos perhaps was already saturated.
But in the space of three years the chapel was small and we proceeded to the acquisition of land adjacent to empower them as cemetery land purchase that covered the second Marquis of Camachos.
Can still be seen inside the shrine grave, or remains the same, reminding us that the temple was chosen as burial by some leading figures of the town as Minister Fernando VII Pedro Regalado, buried in 1820.
The cemetery now occupy the atrium of the chapel and adjacent land was transferred in 1862 to its present location, which at that time would be the far side of the village limits.
It was not until 1850 when the small chapel was enlarged by adding a small sacristy and a house for the hermit.
For years the building was being renovated who came to raise the floor of the nave two feet.
Removed the hermit's house and also primitive trees were felled and the lattice of the court.
In 1997 he proceeded to rehabilitate the chapel recovering the original level of your soil and repairing roofs.
On the west side the house formerly occupied by the hermit halls were constructed as an addendum to the hermitage accessory items.
Source: Ayuntamiento de Alguazas