HISTORY OF VALENCIA´S BULLRING (2nd part)

Once the war was over, the itinerant bullfights and the removable bullrings returned, until in 1850, when Governor Melchor Ordóñez saw the deterioration of the Quart Street facilities, he regained the flagship Bullring project and entrusted the project to the architect Sebastián Monleón Estellés.

It was a huge Monument, with 462 meters in diameter, 86 of altitude and capacity for 20,000 souls.  But the project didn´t run either; the always present problems of security for the city, the lack of budget and the epidemic of cholera of 1854 advised to reduce the pretensions and to make a square with 108 meters of circumference, arena of 52 meters, 17 meters of height and capacity for 14,000 people.

The definitive Bullring, as we know it today, was officially inaugurated on June 22, 1859, with bulls from Nazario Carriquiri and  the Widow of Zalduendo farms, for the  bullfighter Francisco Arjona "Cúchares". In 1861 it was finally opened with a bullfight by Antonio Sánchez El Tato, giving as good the investment of three million "reales" that had been necessary.
In 1908, the power line was installed inside Bullring, with a power of 40 watts, to be able to present nocturnal bullfighting shows.

With the arrival of the Civil War, the Bullring becomes a prison and concentration camp for prisoners, including executions. In those years people went through their doors to bring food to the prisoners or to pick up their dead familiars. Remaining the square recovered for the bullfighting events on April 20, 1939.

Fill in the contact form to be informed