History of Silos

According to the official chronicler of the city of Tarifa, Javier Criado Atalaya, Silos Art Gallery used to be in the old times and old granary where the annual cereal production accumulated by the church was kept.

"The land belonging to the clergy were either exploited directly by them or settlers who worked for the church, under different methods of renting", the chronicler states.
"In the XVIII century the agricultural benefits should have grown enormously for the existing premises were not big enough to accumulate the grain and the Cathedral Town Council of Cadiz, owner of the Silos and bread warehouses, ordered the refurbishment of the place".
Miguel de Oliveros was the person in charge of such project. He fitted it out with several silos and bread warehouses and place for counting the production and register.

A HOUSE WITH A NAME

The places called "Cilla" or "Pósitos episcopales", where fixing the prices of grain, and the tenth part had to be payed here as a tax to the church. In old times there existed one "Cilla" in every town, always near to the main entrance at the north part of the walls.
In the year 1855 the house owned by the Cathedral Town Council of Cadiz was expropriated in accordance with the law of 1 May, Mendizabal Law, and the State became the new owner who sold it to Don Matías Benítez Muñoz who in 1870 sold it to Don Joaquín Abreu Nuñez. He paid for the house with a guarantee of his mother, Doña Concepción Nuñez, and the 12,500 ptas that Don Matías owed him for the barley and corn kept in Silos.
After Don Joaquín Abreu Nuñez death, his daughter, Doña Concepción Abreu Herrera inherited the property. She died in 1947, and the property was shared among her brother and nephews, which sold it in 1951.
Don Jose García García bought it and transferred the property to his wife and both his daughters, María Dolores y María del Rosario García Pérez.

Until the late 40s most of the house was still used as a grain warehouse. Then in 1953 the warehouse on the first floor, the rooms of the granaries and the account department was converted into housing, and the vaulted room became a furniture shop. The building was abandoned, and for a short time was used as a poultry farm.
It has also been used as a restaurant and in 1992 it was already used as an art gallery. In the first exhibition on the opening of the gallery on 24th July, painters from the region such as José Barroso, Rupert de Caso y Villanueva, Jose Luis Delgado (owner of the gallery at that time), José Guerra, Juan Gómez Macías, Maruchi Molinero, and some others like the sculptor Luis Quintero or the painter Fé Rodriguez have collaborated with their work in this gallery. Later their was an individual exhibition by Pilar Rodiles.