Sant Ferran Castle: An Eighteenth-Century Fortress in Figueres, Spain
Site at a Glance
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- 4.5
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- Spain
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Spanish
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Fort
On this page19 sections
History
Sant Ferran Castle is an eighteenth-century Spanish fortress in Figueres, Spain, built under the Bourbon monarchy in the modern military architectural style with neoclassical features. It replaced the border defense lost when Fort Bellegarde at Le Perthus passed to France after the Treaty of the Pyrenees, and became a major military base on Spain’s northeastern frontier.
Construction under Ferdinand VI
The fortress was planned on a hill northwest of Figueres, where a Capuchin friars’ convent had to be relocated before building could begin. The first stone was laid on 13 December 1753 during the reign of Ferdinand VI of Spain, who gave the fortress its name. The military engineers Juan Martín Cermeño and his son Pedro Martín-Paredes Cermeño were among those responsible for the project.
Approximately 4,000 workers took part in the construction. After 13 years, the main fortress was almost complete, although work slowed after Ferdinand VI died. Most of the interior buildings were finished only toward the end of the eighteenth century, and the church was never completed. A garrison occupied the fortress for the first time in 1792.
Frontier warfare and the Peninsular War
During the War of the Pyrenees, the conflict between Spain and revolutionary France from 1793 to 1795, Sant Ferran Castle served both as a base for military operations and as a protected depot for military supplies. Its location and extensive defenses made it useful for organizing forces and storing matériel near the frontier.
French troops captured the fortress early in the Peninsular War, the wider conflict in which Spain and its allies fought Napoleon’s forces between 1808 and 1814. In 1811, the Miquelets, irregular Catalan militia units used especially for local operations, seized the fortress in a surprise attack. They held it against French forces for four months before Spanish troops regained it at the end of the war.
Sant Ferran was the last fortress held by France to be surrendered during the Peninsular War. It was returned to Spain on 4 June 1814. The fortress also became associated with Mariano Álvarez de Castro, the Spanish military governor connected with the defense of Girona. After his capture, the French brought him to Sant Ferran on 21 January 1810. He died there the next day. French authorities attributed his death to fever, while Spanish opinion held that he had been poisoned.
A black-marble tablet was placed on Álvarez de Castro’s grave in 1815. Marshal Moncey, a French military commander and Napoleon’s inspector general of police, ordered its destruction in December 1823.
Military stronghold during the Civil War
For many years after the Peninsular War, the fortress continued as a purely military base. During the Spanish Civil War, the International Brigades used it as a logistical ammunition store and an art depot. From late 1937, numerous works from the Prado collection in Madrid were also kept within its walls to protect them from possible destruction.
At the end of the Civil War, Sant Ferran Castle became the last seat of the government of the Spanish Republic. On 1 February 1939, the final meeting of the Republican Cortes held on Spanish soil took place in the fortress stables. The Cortes was the representative parliamentary body of the Republic. Sixty-two deputies attended, and Juan Negrín, the Republic’s last prime minister, delivered his final speech there.
On 8 February 1939, as Francoist forces advanced toward Figueres, retreating Republicans detonated the fortress’s two principal ammunition depots to prevent their capture. The explosions destroyed the main gate in the southeastern curtain wall, the hospital, and the northeastern half of the underground stables. They also damaged parts of the Sant Dalmau and Sant Narcís bastions, the Sant Narcís powder magazine, the southern section of the arsenal and bakery buildings, and the stables between the Sant Jaume and Santa Tecla bastions. Upper-floor accommodation in these areas was destroyed as well.
Figueres had been evacuated because extensive blast damage was expected. Masonry and rock fragments nevertheless reached the town and caused damage. The explosions broke the inner defensive ring and left the fortress unusable as a military stronghold.
Later uses and preservation
After the Civil War, the Franco regime took control of Sant Ferran and used it as a military training establishment, a base for border-guard troops, and an ammunition depot. The curtain walls were repaired, but the destroyed stables, hospital, and principal gate were not rebuilt.
From 1966, the complex was no longer used primarily for military purposes. It was later used partly as a prison, and the leaders of the attempted coup of 23 February 1981 were imprisoned there. The prison closed in 1991, after which the unused fortress began to deteriorate. Sant Ferran was declared a cultural-historical monument in 1949 and received national cultural-heritage protection as a monument in 1988. Parts of the former military complex have been open to the public since 1996 and 1997, and sections have undergone restoration. A military-history museum is associated with the site. Salvador Dalí also performed his military service at the fortress in 1927.
Remains
Sant Ferran Castle occupies approximately 32 hectares on an exposed hill or plateau northwest of Figueres. Its perimeter extends for about 3.1 kilometres. The plan forms an irregular octagon enclosed by double defensive walls, ditches, detached outer works, and a covered way, a protected passage along the outer edge of a ditch. Built mainly of stone and brick, the complex combines large-scale defensive planning with neoclassical architectural features.
Inner fortifications
Bastions and curtain walls
The inner ring contains six bastions, projecting platforms that allowed defenders to fire along the faces of adjoining walls. Four principal corner bastions mark the main angles: Sant Jaume lies to the north, Sant Felip to the northwest, Sant Dalmau to the south, and Sant Narcís to the southeast. Santa Tecla projects from the eastern side and Santa Bàrbara from the western side. Four curtain walls, the sections joining bastions, form the northern, southern, and western sides of the inner enclosure, while the great stable occupies the eastern side.
The principal gate once stood in the southeastern curtain wall. It was destroyed in the explosion of 1939, although some of its stones remain in the ditch. Two drawbridges formerly gave access to the fortress and have since been removed.
Great stable
The great stable forms the eastern side of the inner ring. It was built as a casemate, a vaulted fortified space used for accommodation, storage, or weapons, within the eastern wall. The stable had an entrance opening toward the ditch and was designed to accommodate approximately 450 horses. The northeastern half of the underground stable complex was destroyed in 1939, along with the stables between the Sant Jaume and Santa Tecla bastions and their upper-floor accommodation.
Outer defensive works
Ravelins and hornworks
The outer defenses included seven ravelins, detached triangular works positioned before curtain walls or gates. Those named at Sant Ferran are Roser, Les Ànimes, Sant Josep, and Sant Antoni. The ravelins covered the eastern and western curtain walls and the great stable, while further ravelins protected the curtain walls of the hornworks.
Three hornworks, outer defenses made from projecting arms and a connecting wall, protected the northern curtain, southern curtain, and western bastion. They are Sant Roc, Sant Miquel, and Sant Zenó. Their rear curtain walls contained accommodation for the garrison. The fortress was principally entered through the southern hornwork of Sant Roc.
Contraguards and covered way
Two contraguards, detached works placed before bastions, stand in front of the western corner bastions. They are named Sant Pere and Sant Joan. A ditch surrounds the complex and separates the inner ring from the outer defenses. The covered way encircles the entire fortress, completing the layered defensive system.
Ground defenses and underground works
Rock-cut foundations
Before construction began, the hill was levelled and partly removed to create a sufficiently broad building area. Much of the fortress rests directly on rock, making attack by mining difficult. The western side near Sant Zenó was more vulnerable, so the designers added five masonry countermining galleries. These underground passages projected westward from the outer base of the ditch and contained transverse passages and listening chambers, allowing defenders to detect enemy tunnelling and destroy it with countermines.
Water cisterns
Four cisterns lie beneath the parade courtyard and together could hold approximately 10 million litres of water. A central passage connects them and also permits them to be emptied. Each cistern could be filled separately and had its own well shaft, creating four separate water-drawing wells at the corners of the courtyard. The supply entered through a water pipe from springs outside the fortress.
Interior buildings and damaged areas
Military accommodation
The fortified interior contains nine large buildings arranged around a large parade courtyard. They included quarters for the commander and officers, accommodation for specialists and soldiers, a residence, a facility for soldiers, bombproof vaulted spaces, a prison, a casemate, a light court, and a memorial chapel. The fortress was planned for a permanent garrison of approximately 4,000 soldiers and 500 horses, together with officers’ families and civilian providers of military services.
Hospital, arsenal, and powder magazine
The hospital was unfinished when the 1939 explosions destroyed it. The same blast destroyed the southern part of the arsenal and bakery buildings, parts of the Sant Dalmau and Sant Narcís bastions, and the Sant Narcís powder magazine. The repaired curtain walls preserve portions of the wider defensive enclosure, while these damaged structures were not reconstructed after the war.
Unfinished church
A church formed part of the original interior plan, but construction never reached completion. Its unfinished state reflects the interruption and slowing of the fortress’s later eighteenth-century building programme after the death of Ferdinand VI.
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