Fortress of San Damián: A Coastal Artillery Fortress in Ribadeo, Spain
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 3.9
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Spanish
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Fort
On this page8 sections
History
The Fortress of San Damián is a bastioned battery-fortification on the shore of the Ribadeo estuary in Spain, built to defend Ribadeo’s shipyard and port from attacks by sea. Its first completed construction took place in October 1624, during the Eighty Years’ War, the long conflict between Spain and the Dutch revolt. The fortress passed through repeated periods of reinforcement, destruction, rebuilding, and abandonment before the eighteenth-century reconstruction established the form that survives today.
Plans and construction in the seventeenth century
A proposal for a fortification at the site was prepared in 1605 by Ensign Bartolomé Muñiz. Luis Carrillo de Toledo, Captain General of the Kingdom of Galicia, submitted the plan to King Philip III after warnings that Dutch forces and Barbary pirates might attack Ribadeo’s shipyard. The project was not carried out.
The first fortress was built in October 1624 on the orders of Juan Alonso Idiáquez y Butrón, Marquis of San Damián and Captain General of the Kingdom of Galicia. The immediate reason was a warning of an approaching Dutch fleet, whose threat was connected with the maritime operations of the Eighty Years’ War. Captains Andrade, Juan Ordóñez, and Luis Daza of Valladolid directed the works.
Further warnings of maritime attack led to additions and strengthening in 1628, 1632, and 1639. During calmer periods, however, the fortification was abandoned. By 1638 it held eight cast-iron guns. Four had been transferred from the A Atalaya bastion, while the guns themselves had been brought to Ribadeo from A Coruña in 1622 on the orders of Rodrigo Pacheco y Osorio, Marquis of Cerralbo.
The artillery also caused concern among Ribadeo’s inhabitants. In 1638, during the Siege of Fuenterrabía, the town repeatedly sought the removal of the guns and the dismantling of the fortress. Residents feared that an enemy might seize the position and turn its artillery against Ribadeo. Their request was addressed to Pedro Álvarez de Toledo, then Captain General of the Kingdom of Galicia, the senior royal military and administrative authority in the kingdom.
Destruction and rebuilding
On 27 September 1719, during the War of the Quadruple Alliance, English forces captured San Damián. This war pitted Britain and its allies against Spain, and the seizure occurred shortly before the capture of Vigo. The attackers destroyed the fortress and made its artillery unusable by throwing the guns into the sea.
The site was rebuilt in the summer of 1743 during the War of the Asiento, the Anglo-Spanish conflict of 1739 to 1748 also known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear. Juan Vergel y Reyllo, chief engineer of Galicia, was responsible for the engineering authority, while Arnaldo Hontabat directed the construction.
The eighteenth-century fortress
In 1763, under Carlos Francisco de Croix, Captain General of the Kingdom of Galicia, San Damián was enlarged and comprehensively remodelled. Engineer Francisco Llovet prepared the design. This work created the arrangement preserved in the present structure. The fortress eventually carried eleven artillery pieces, watched over by soldiers and local residents who took turns on guard duty.
The internal arrangement received smaller reforms in 1769, following a design by engineer Baltasar Ricaud. Before the fortress ceased to operate, it also provided temporary accommodation for the Military Hospital of Asturias. The hospital had been moved after the arrival of French forces led to the closure of the hospital in Oviedo.
Dismantling, abandonment, and preservation
At the end of January 1809, during the opening phase of the Peninsular War, the Spanish army dismantled the fortress as French troops under François Fournier approached Ribadeo by land. The Peninsular War was the struggle in Spain and Portugal against Napoleonic France from 1808 to 1814. San Damián was definitively abandoned in the summer of 1810 and was later looted by local residents.
After several unsuccessful efforts to transfer the property to the Civil Treasury in the late nineteenth century, the Ministry of the Army ceded it to Ribadeo Town Council in 1965. The municipality restored the fortress in 1990 under a project by Ribadeo architect Ernesto Cruzado Estévez, during the mayoralty of Eduardo Gutiérrez Fernández. It is protected under Decree No. 125 of 5 May 1949 and was declared a Site of Cultural Interest in 1994.
Remains
The surviving Fortress of San Damián is organized as a bastioned fortification, a defensive work with projecting angular bastions that allowed firearms to cover the wall faces and approaches. It also functioned as a battery, a fortified position designed to mount artillery. Set beside the Ribadeo estuary, the structure was positioned to protect the shipyard and port from attacks arriving by sea.
Defensive layout and artillery
The layout visible today derives from the enlargement and complete remodelling carried out in 1763. That intervention established the form described as preserved intact and without later alteration to its principal arrangement. The interior distribution was adjusted in 1769, but the eighteenth-century reconstruction remains the basis of the present fortress.
San Damián’s armament developed as the fortification changed. The original work carried four cast-iron artillery pieces brought from A Coruña. Its weapons had increased to eight guns by 1638, including four moved from the A Atalaya bastion. Following the eighteenth-century remodelling, the fortress mounted eleven artillery pieces. During the English attack of 1719, the guns then in the fortress were thrown into the sea and rendered unusable.
Later physical history
The structure’s present condition reflects several major interruptions to its use. English forces completely destroyed the seventeenth-century fortress in 1719, and a new work was raised in 1743. The enlarged and remodelled eighteenth-century arrangement was then dismantled by the Spanish army in 1809. After abandonment in 1810 and subsequent local looting, the municipality restored the fortress in 1990, preserving the layout created by the 1763 reconstruction.
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