Barcelona recovers a street erased in 1714: Bourbon houses and bullets reappear

BarcelonaAfter September 11, 1714, the Bourbons decided to build a massive citadel in Barcelona to control a city whose population lacked strength and resources, and could barely feed itself or rebuild the houses destroyed by bombs. In fact, as he explained Albert Garcia Espuche in an interview at ARAThe people of Barcelona thought the victorious military wouldn't be capable of what they ended up doing: demolishing a thousand houses and wiping out 17% of Barcelona's surface area. One of the neighborhoods they erased from the map was La Ribera, where mainly fishermen and sailors lived. More than 300 years later, one of the streets swallowed by the rubble has resurfaced: the old Caldes Street (now Antiga de Sant Joan Street). Four of the cannonballs fired by the Bourbon army at the houses have even been found. The construction of the new sewer system has uncovered a twenty-meter stretch and up to nine houses that stood on both sides of the street. They are quite humble houses. Closer to Passeig del Born, there was likely an inn. The dining room and even the location of the fireplace can still be seen. It was in this house that four cannonballs, about thirty centimeters long, were found. Next door were probably taverns where sailors went to eat and drink. Towards the area of ​​the present-day Avenida del Marqués de la Argentera, there were salted fish shops, cod fishmongers... Archaeological work has uncovered some evidence of this activity: large ceramic tongs and some cooking grills. Archaeologists have also found many coins, many kaolin pipes, a ring, spoons...

The Burials

The street was about 4.5 meters wide. Its layout doesn't exactly match the current one; instead, it was oriented slightly to the northwest. "You can still see the stone paving with a central channel where the drains from the houses emptied," explains Anna Bordas Tissier, director of the archaeological intervention. "We could say it's a photograph because they didn't even remove the rubble; they covered everything up and built on top," she adds. Specifically, they built an esplanade that surrounded the citadel. The archaeological work will continue in the coming weeks. "When we found these remains, the entire sewer project was redesigned to minimize the impact on the remains, because initially there was a much greater impact on the entire street area," explains Laia Macià, a technician with the Barcelona Archaeology Service. Excavation will continue, one to two meters further in the direction of Argentera. Bordas doesn't believe there are any more structures beneath the houses because the sand is already below the foundations. The possibility of finding a burial site cannot be ruled out, although further excavation would be necessary.

In fact, on the same street, but in a section opened in 2017, further east, up to 16 Roman-era burials were excavated. These would be related to the extensive Roman necropolis located in the middle of the Ribera neighborhood. The discovered graves were dug directly into the natural sand, in simple pits, and many contained coffins, as the iron nails used to construct the wooden boxes were recovered. An Islamic burial site was also found on the same street. It is not the only one. Under the Commercial Square, the remains of 17 Muslim people were found in 1991, in 2001 a child was also found buried under the Born site, and in 2013, another child was found on Fusina Street.

The archaeological investigation, which began in January 2026, will continue until after Easter. The intention is to leave the site as undisturbed as possible in case, in the near or distant future, someone reopens the street and continues their investigation. Even so, once the archaeological company has completed its report on the impact and the entire perimeter has been excavated, the plan is to proceed with the sewer works. In this regard, several organizations on Wednesday requested that the Catalan Government's Department of Culture declare the 5,400 m² plot a Cultural Asset of National Interest (BCIN).² of the old courthouses due to their historical and archaeological importance. The request would also affect the entire Sant Pere, Santa Caterina, and La Ribera neighborhood. The organizations that have filed the request, grouped under the name Plataforma la Ribera en Acción (La Ribera in Action Platform), are the Old Town Neighborhood Association, the Dignity Commission, the ANC (Catalan National Assembly), Òmnium Cultural, the Old Guild of Resellers Association 1447, the Coronela de Barcelona, ​​the 1714 Memorial, and the Platform.