El Castillo San Felipe
A fortress of colonial character at the mouth of the ravine that shares its name, in Puerto de la Cruz, right beside Playa Jardín. Its story goes back to the 17th century, when it watched over the northern coast of Tenerife and sheltered the town from corsairs and pirates. Built of masonry in the shape of an irregular pentagon, it lost its military role in 1869 and now serves as the cultural venue of the municipality, with an exhibition hall and a cafe.
The history of the Castillo de San Felipe goes back to the 17th century, when the fort was raised at the mouth of the ravine that shares its name, to guard the northern coast of Tenerife and offer shelter from corsairs and pirates. The trading network that had grown around Puerto de la Cruz turned the spot into a strategic enclave, known as the key to the island, and made a defensive platform necessary. From 1641 it secured the town as one of the four small forts that once protected it, until it ceased to be militarily operative in 1869. After a long period of abandonment it passed to the town council of Puerto de la Cruz in 1891 and was used in turn as a quarantine station, a municipal store and a citadel.
Built in masonry with a distinctly colonial character, the building takes the form of an irregular pentagon. The ground floor housed the guardroom and the ammunition store, while the upper floor was fitted out as quarters and kitchen for the troops; three iron cannons stood in its battery. Fifty metres away the old gunpowder magazine, the Polvorín, still stands, and the fort itself rises some nine hundred metres from the town centre. Restored in 1993 for cultural use, it is now the emblematic cultural space of the municipality, a setting for concerts, exhibitions and creative projects, and a balcony over Playa Jardín and the Punta Brava quarter.
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