Plaza Alta

The Plaza Alta of Algeciras began to be built in 1807 and has witnessed some of the most important chapters written in the city's history. It was General Castaños who proposed the square be built to the "Great Admiral" Manuel Godoy. In fact it is also known as Plaza del Almirante ("Square of the Admiral"), as the works were completed on 12 May of that same year, which was the birthday of Manuel Godoy.

The square has a surface area of 4,420 square yards, with a periphery of Lombardy poplar trees. The Coronel of the Calvary was responsible for the building of this square on four fronts, with streets from eight to twelve yards wide, a paved central square with eight entrances and, in the centre, a commemorative monument with an obelisk, which the mayor Joaquín Bianchi Santacana ordered be pulled down in 1926. In 1929, the mayor Laureano Ortega Arquellada commissioned the companies Sevilla Cerámica Santa Ana and Cerámica Sevillana de Triana Casa González to build the square's singular paving.

During its first one hundred years of history, this square was given different names on different occasions, depending on the political circumstances at any given time. The Plaza del Almirante became known as Plaza de la Constitución in 1823, Plaza del Rey in 1824, and, after the death of Ferdinand VII, the Plaza Isabel II. In the twentieth century, it was called the Plaza de la República (1931) and Plaza del Generalísimo Franco (1936) and finally took the name of Plaza Alta, which is how it is known today.