Church of San José in Navalcarnero

The first documentary references on the place appear in the will of a neighbor of Navalcarnero, who in the 1.000th century bequeathed XNUMX reales to make a sculpture of San José for the so-called Humilladero de la Cruz de Aparicio or San Francisco, where more Later a temple with a single nave would be built, with a false transept covered with a spire and a semicircular apse.

The hermitage of San José must have been built between 1663 and 1668, the year it was blessed. The traces of the temple have been attributed to the Jesuit Francisco Bautista, who at that time worked on the spire of the tower of the parish church of Navalcarnero. The hermitage bell tower, the tower that contained its staircase and the rostrum, were built between 1683 and 1692, this time by the neighbor of Navalcarnero Diego Sánchez, master builder and carpenter.

In the year 1733, Agustín de Fuenlabrada delivered to the brotherhood of San José a stone doorway that had been originally carved for the hermitage of San Juan Bautista that was trying to rebuild around the same time. At that same time the hermitage also received an organ and two altarpieces for the cruise.

In 1858 the atrium of the temple was demolished as a consequence of the construction of the San José fountain in the adjacent plaza and in 1877 an important reform was undertaken in the building directed by the diocesan architect Enrique María de Repullés y Vargas. 

The hermitage of San José was progressively abandoned. During the Civil War it was used as a warehouse, then suffering the greatest damage. Finally, his remains were demolished in the early 60s.

The objective of the intervention was the archaeological excavation of the site in which the old hermitage of San José was located, which disappeared in the sixties of the XNUMXth century, as support and advice for the architectural project to rebuild said baroque religious building.

Description of the archaeological action

The archaeological intervention allowed to document the complete plant of the temple. In 1998, three previous surveys had already been carried out, which confirmed the existence of significant remains of the building.

The remains of the head of the church, whose circular plan was already known thanks to Repullés' 1877 construction plan, appeared with a calicanto foundation of about 0,90 m. of thickness. The foundation of the walls that made up the nave of the church was also uncovered, with the remains of the mud slab that made up the temple plan. The main access was on the south side of the building, towards the middle of the nave.

In the center of the transept, a granite slab was discovered, which was already detected in the previous archaeological survey. It has a very rustic inscription dedicated to a presbyter who was protector of the temple, who was buried here in 1770.

The oldest vestige was documented at the foot of the transept, where the foundation of the original humilladero that was erected in the place was identified, on which the hermitage of San José was later built.

In 2008, the Church of San José was completely rebuilt following the project of the architect Raimundo Estepa, who has tried to recover its original appearance, with special emphasis on the circular apse, the stone portal and the spire.