The chapel is a small temple which, according to legend, was built on top of the hill where the Virgin appeared. The current image is a replica of the original, which was destroyed during the Civil War. Towards the eighteenth century, the chapel was built on the remains of a cemetery. During the War, around 1936, the image was attacked; a rope was tied around its neck and it was dragged through the street.
The chapel was built in 1994 by Antonio Salazar Gay and Asunción Rísquez Pamos on the occasion of a promise of illness. The image of Santa Gema came from Gerona two years before the construction of the chapel; during that time the image remained in the couple’s house. Once completed, the chapel was inaugurated and blessed by the Priest who lived in the town at that time, Don Francisco Martínez Rojas. At present, the chapel is open on the fourteenth of each month,when it is visited by its devotees.
History of Villardompardo
Villardompardo popular traditional festivals celebrated are the Three Kings, San Anton, Carnival, Holy Week, San Isidro, San Juan, San Roque, San Francisco and Virgen del Rosario.
The Villardompardo tourist office is located in Ayuntamiento de Villardompardo
If you are considering visiting Villardompardo you may be interested to check the weather forecast for the next few days in the table below.
Bus Services - Villardompardo
The church is formed by a single nave decorated with a seventeenth-century coffered ceiling, currently hidden by half-barrel domes from the mid-twentieth century. The tower is dated between the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, made in three parts; the first consisted of the baptistery crowned with a late Gothic vault;the second part was probably constructed towards the end of the seventeenth century (or early eighteenth); and the third part, dating from the nineteenth century, consisted of a belfry to crown the tower. Today, the tower is topped with a twentieth-century plasterwork dome, which references the Holy Land.
Villardompardo is situated to the west of the capital of Jaén, amongst extensive olive groves near the Salado de Los Villares River. It has about 970 inhabitants.