The Church of San Antón is dedicated to Anthony the Great. It is featured, along with the San Antón Bridge, in the city's coat of arms. The estuary of Bilbao flows next to it.
The church was built at the end of the 15th century on a plot where there had been a years a warehouse for three hundred years.
In 1300 Diego López de Haro gave the municipal charter. The river and the plot were incorporated to the new village called Bilbao. Some claim that in 1334 Alfonso XI of Castile ordered to build a fortress and wall that were used like a dike against the flood. A wall was discovered in 2002 by an archaeological excavation but the claim is still inconclusive.
Some time later this two buildings were replaced by one church dedicated to Saint Anton Abbot. This church was consecrated in 1433. In that moment the church only has one nave with a rectangular floor and a vaulted roof.
In 1478 they start a new project to increase the church, because it was very small and the congregation of faithful people was increasing. This enlargement, in Gothic style, was finished in the first part of the 16th century.
Throughout history this church has suffered a lot of damages and was closed two times. The main source of damage was the Nervión river because the church is very close to it. A lot of flooding happened during the history and a part of the furniture inside was affected by it. The last flood was in 1983 and it affected the church; it destroyed furniture, drag doors and railings.
During the war the bombing and fire the church suffer a lot of damages. Especially during the Carlist war. Caused by this war the church had to close because it was used like warehouse of management. The second time when Saint Anton had to close was in 1881. This was caused by the tumbledown state of the church. This restoration done by Sabino Goikoetxea was very polemic because he change a lot of original things.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).