Botched church refurbishment is so bad ‘it’s an attack on our heritage’

Conservationists outraged over crude restoration of historic gem in northern Spain

Professional restorers in Spain are demanding to know how the refurbishment of a historic church was apparently botched to leave it looking crude and cartoonish.
One group of conservationists called the work on the 18th-century Ermita de Nuestra Señora del Mirón in Soria in northern Spain as amateurish and an “attack” on Spain’s heritage.
Before-and-after pictures of the makeover show the church’s once white nave now striped strawberry red and its prized cherubs painted in stark colours, looking startled.
“What have they done to the Ermita de Nuestra Señora del Mirón?” local cultural conservation group Soria Patrimonio wrote on X.
The church is listed as a heritage building and famous among fans of the Spanish poet Antonio Machado, who visited the church often when his wife, Leonor Izquierdo, fell ill before her death in Soria in 1912.
Soria Patrimonio said: “It is a listed building, and even if it were not, the intervention in a monument of these characteristics must have minimum guarantees.
“Repainting was not a valid option and much less so in a way that turns what was unique into vulgar.”
The Association of Conservators-Restorers of Spain (Acre) described the restoration of the church as an “attack” on heritage, performed, it said, “without professionals, without respect and without criteria”.
The diocese of Osma-Soria, in which the church is located, told the online newspaper El Confidencial that the row over the restoration work was “a question of taste”.
The anger over the refurbishment also stems from it not being the first time that Spain’s historical gems have fallen victim to questionable touch-up jobs.
In 2012, a century-old Spanish fresco of Christ by the artist Elias Garcia Martinez drew ridicule after Cecilia Gimenez, a well-meaning pensioner, tried to restore it in the Santuario de Misericordia near her home town of Borja. Far from restoring it to something like its original state, the fresco earned the nickname Monkey Christ.
Some years later, a 16th-century polychrome wooden statue of St George and the dragon in Navarre suffered the humiliation of looking more like TinTin after its makeover was complete.