Castles of Lanzarote

The Castle San José

The Castle San José lies to the north of the capital, Arrecife. It is one of the Tourist Centres of the island Municipal Council, it is situated between Mole of the Marbles and Puerto Naos and its walls raise over a promontony from which it obtains a splendid view over the sea. This fortress, built on the orders of Carlos III in 1799, directly overlooks the entrance to the harbour and the town.

It was also called, The Castle of Hunger, beacause at the time of its construction the inhabitants of Lanzarote were undergoing severe hardship due to their being no work. The bening monarch, Philip 2nd ordered this fortifications to be erected, which besides protecting the port and Arrecife, also gave employment to many islanders.

Some fifteen years ago, local artist, César Manrique, converted part of the Castle into an art gallery, known as the International Museum of Contemporary Art. One of the cavernous halls is also used for concert recitals and cultural meetings. On the ground level, almost on the shoreline is a restaurant and snack bar with a panoramic view over the entrance to the harbour and out to sea.

The Castle San Gabriel

The Castle San Gabriel was built in 1573 in Arrecife on instructions of Agustín Herrera y Rojas and was meant as fortification against the many pirate attacks the island had to suffer back then.

But already in 1586 the cruel attack by the pirate Morato Arraez proved that the four cannons, from which one was put on each side of the castle, were not enough to protect the capital from the assaults coming from the ocean side.

In 1591 arrived Leonardo Torriani at the island who immediately started to plan on the improvements to be done on the castle. Finally, differing from Torrianis original plans, it was constructed a new way, protected by walls with escape exits and three cannons at each side. Still today this way connects the island which the castle was built on with the proximate shore line via a drawbridge of which type there can only found one in the whole Canary Islands.

In later refurbishment works the walls of the castle were strengthened and two more cannons were put on its roof.   Today the Castillo de San Gabriel is used as archaeological museum providing a great inside into the former life of the aborigines.

In the lower floor can be contemplated monoliths, anchors, stone paintings, fossils, clay and mud figures, ceramics, tools, statues, simbols and images of fertileness such as many skeletons, skulls and burial objects from the aborigines.

In the upper floor can be found ceramics by Juan Brito an cannons.

The Castle Santa Bárbara

The Castle Santa Bárbara is situated in the North-West of Lanzarote on the top of the Guanapay Mountain, reason for which it is also called Guanapay Castle.

This castle was built by Sancho Herrera as look-out and control point over the coast and revised by the engineer of the king Felipe II, Leonardo Torriani, in 1588 who transformed it in a defence tower providing it with cannons and battlements.

After losing its defensive utility, the castle nowadays is used as museum and repository for most of the documents from islanders who emigrated to America: passports, boarding passes, maps, fotographs, letters etc.

The last refurbishment works to the castle were introduced by the Department of Renovation of the Community of Teguise in 1898 which pretended to restore the appearance it showed after being reworked by Torriani.

The Castle Coloured

The Coloured Castle or the Tower of Aguila (Yaiza) was built between 1741 and 1744 with double mission: its bell ringing warned the people of pirates attacks, and as defence, because when the drawbridge was lifted it became impossible to storm.

One has to bear in mind that the Canaries by its privileged location was a covetable prey of the naval powers of Europe, and the european and african pirates. It is a beautiful example for the study of military architecture from the past.