Antic Hospital - English

THE OLD HOSPITAL

The Old Hospital is a building that dates to around the year 1518, created by the master builder Pere Polo from Lleida who worked for the Dukes of Cardona. The building was the hospital for the poor and the infirm. This building was partially destroyed during the Reapers’ War in 1640, while the reconstruction was finalized in 1696.

The building remained in place until the 19th century thanks to the contributions made by the town parish and local government, in addition to the rent received from leasing the cattle pen located at the back of the building. During the 19th century, the Hospital was full as a result of the diseases brought on by the famine that the people of Arbeca suffered due to the droughts and the death of the olive trees. In 1846 the Hospital was dismantled and moved to the town of Les Borges Blanques.

The Old Hospital remained unused for its original purpose, although it continued to be used for municipal offices. Records show that during the 1920s the Town Council announced a vacancy to cover the position of a hospital worker. As such, the building once again resumed its former functions. At that time, there was also a nursery school and the municipal court on the top floor. The ground floor was the living quarters of the family who took care of the hospital along with the wards and rooms used to take care of the patients. Behind it was a shelter for homeless people.

As the Old Hospital was a municipal building, the elections at the time were held on the top floor where the nursery school was located. The 1936 elections were the last ones held in that space.

During the Civil War, the town of Arbeca was bombarded on several occasions and the Old Hospital did not escape unscathed. Although the building no longer functioned as a hospital during the Second Republic, it did house some of the wounded who arrived in the town from the front. The building next to it, the headquarters of the Republican Union, was the field hospital during the conflict, but starting in 1938, so many wounded soldiers arrived from the Segre Front and the Battle of the Ebro that the Old Hospital had to be used to house all the casualties. The site was used as a centre for support and medical care during this period until 9 January, the date on which the Nationalist forces occupied the town. Evidently, some of the badly wounded soldiers from the front passed away and were likely buried in the mass grave in the Old Cemetery.

When the war ended, as the Town Hall Building on the Plaça Major had been destroyed, the new authorities transferred the municipal offices to the Old Hospital, where in addition to setting a space aside for the secretary's living quarters, a part was reserved as a jail due to the arrests stemming from the heavy repression of the defeated.

The town council remained in the building until the early 1960s. In those years, construction work done on the C-233, a highway that passed through the town, forcing a part of the building to be removed and demolished, cutting the main facade, and making it less functional. The Municipal Council decided to move the Town Hall to the building of the old Republic Union, which the local government had recently acquired.

The Old Hospital was put up for sale and purchased by a family from the town that lived there until 2018, when it once again became municipal property.