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Visitors will be able to walk up to Santa Bárbara Castle from the centre of Alicante once again, as a restoration of its western wall is set to reopen a route that's been closed to the public for 25 years.

 

Alicante City Council signed an agreement on Monday with the Hortensia Herrero Foundation, which promotes cultural awareness through projects across the Valencian Community, to restore the 470-metre-long wall, which dates back to between the 11th and 13th centuries. The investment comes to €2.4 million and will include a new museum space.

 

The deal was approved at an extraordinary and urgent meeting of the Local Government Board held behind closed doors, which coincided with a visit to City Hall by the foundation's president, Hortensia Herrero. It wasn't on the mayor's public agenda and the media weren't told.

 

Mayor Luis Barcala thanked the foundation for its commitment and described the work as "one more step in the conservation of the castle". Ms Herrero said the project fills her with "special excitement" and pointed out that it's the foundation's first intervention of its kind outside the city of València.

 

The work is expected to take a year and is being led by the València-based architecture studio ERRE. The walls will first be cleaned and repaired before being consolidated, with unsuitable additions removed, the masonry mended and the structure reinforced.

 

Once it's finished, the council explained, the wall will be shown off with monumental lighting and a museum-style route with information panels and multimedia content on the monument's history.

 

The restoration will also bring back access to the fortress along the Muralla de Poniente from the west slope of Mount Benacantil, close to the city centre. According to the council, the wall has served a strategic and defensive purpose through history and survived the city's later expansion because it sits within the mountain, standing as an architectural testimony of the castle's early occupation.

 

 

Image: Ayuntamiento de Alicante