St. Peter's Church

This is the most important church in Carmona and it is located off the main entrance to the old town - Puerta de Sevilla. It was built at the end of the fourteenth century on the site of the Virgen de la Antigua shrine, by order of Henry II who had besieged the city. The besieging Catholic Monarchs ordered an expansion of the hermitage and later, in the eighteenth century, it adopted baroque forms. Initially it was a single nave with a gabled Arab roof and a number of outbuildings. In the late eighteenth century it was made into a bell tower, this was a local decision because of the appearance of the Giralda in Seville, and is known as La Giraldilla.