Cemetery of Vilafranca has a major cultural value and takes an important part of our architectural heritage.
All Saints’ Day and All Souls’
A popular saying asserts that “death is a fact of life” and that it is, therefore, an unavoidable and logical everyday event. And so, throughout the year, but in particular during All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, the Cemetery Vilafranca del Penedès fills with people visiting their ancestors tombs, adorning them and bringing flowers, not only for their late parents, but also for distant relatives and friends.
Cemetery visits are special. One can walk around the quiet streets, look at the tombs and mausoleums and admire their construction and ornaments. The cemetery becomes a familiar public space that allows us to travel through the history of our city.
About the cemetery
The construction of the cemetery of Vilafranca started in 1839, at the time when the late 19th century and early 20th century Romantic ideas started to spread. It was built on the site of an old Capuchin monastery and its property was transferred by the Spanish Government to the City Council in 1837 as a result of the Ecclesiastical Confiscations of Mendizábal.
The cemetery has a rectangular floor plan, composing an assembly of funerary constructions, gardens and a public chapel. Renowned architects such as Santiago Güell, August Font or Antoni Pons designed some of its more significant constructions, a good testimony of the social status of the individuals and families buried here.
Cemetery of Vilafranca has a major cultural value and takes an important part of our architectural heritage. It invites us to walk around its streets, to recall one of our society’s collective spaces and to remember our late-loved ones.
One of the peculiarities of the cemetery is that it is not visually dissociated from the outside. On top of the skirting board resulting from the demolition of the Chapel of Our Lady of the Portal (19th century), there is an iron railing enclosing the cemetery on its southern part and that allows the visual contact between the worlds of the dead and the living.
The Vilafranca del Penedès cemetery has also an important botanical heritage containing, among others, Cypress trees, Olive trees, Oval-leaved Privet, European Box, Strawberry tree, pine tree.
Basic data
The Cemetery Vilafranca del Penedès is owned and managed by Ajuntament de Vilafranca del Penedès. It covers an area of 16.082,73 m2 where we can find 5.212 graves, 32 funeral urns and 61 vaults.Most of the graves and vaults are from local people, but people from Germany, Albany, France, Italy, Denmark and United States are also buried there. The main religion represented in the cemetery is Catholic.
Important graves and monuments
Some of the important graves, vaults and monuments on the Cemetery Vilafranca del Penedès that must be taken into consideration are:- Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary Brotherhood,
- Burial vault od Miguel Torres,
- Burial vault of Ramon Marimon,
- Chapel of Antoni Jané,
- Garrison grave,
- Tomb of Matilde,
- Tomb of Margaret von Hase,
- Vault of the Via-Oliveras family,
- Burial vault of the Milà Sallent Family,
- Burial vault of Maria Torres Almirall,
- and others.
Address
Cemetery Vilafranca del PenedèsCarrer de Guardiola 1
08720 Vilafranca del Penedès
Spain
Contacts
Pilar YagüeEmail: pyague@vilafranca.org
Phone: +34 93 892 03 58
Anna Guixens
Email: aguixens@vilafranca.org
Phone: +34 93 892 03 58