Hermitage of El Rocío

The Hermitage of El Rocío is a hermitage at El Rocío in the countryside of Almonte, Province of Huelva, Andalusia, Spain. The hermitage is home to the Virgin of El Rocío, a small, much-venerated carved wood statue, and is the destination of an annual procession/pilgrimage on the second day of the Pentecost, known as the Romería de El Rocío, connected to the veneration of the Virgin of El Rocío; in recent years the Romería has brought together roughly a million pilgrims each year.Although there has been a hermitage on this site for centuries, the present hermitage building was designed by architects Antonio Delgado y Roig and Alberto Balbontín de Orta, designed in 1961 and built in stages over the next two decades.HistoryThe historical chronicles say that King Alfonso X of Castile (Alfonso the Wise), present on the site in 1270, ordered the construction of a hermitage dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the place then known as Las Rocinas, which had recently been reconquered from the Muslims who at that time still ruled much of southern Spain. The same chronicles say that attracted by the beauty of the area and its abundant deer, Alfonso established himself a hunting preserve there in 1269, first known as the Coto Real del Lomo del Grullo y Las Rocinas, which largely coincides with today's Doñana National Park or Coto de Doñana.