Our Lady of Piedras Alba

Patrona de El Almendro y Villanueva de los Castillejos (Huelva)

In the Prado de Osma, in the heart of Andévalo onubense, the hermitage of Piedras Alba guards the common patron of two villages, in one of the oldest romaneries in the province of Huelva.

Origin and history

The hermitage is located in the Prado de Osma, an old settlement of El Almendro, and is a place of shared devotion with Villanueva de los Castillejos for centuries. The common patronage over both peoples, which gave it this title "from time immemorial," was canonically confirmed by the Holy See by a rewritten public in 2021. It is spoken of five centuries of history, and the Romeria is considered the first of the year in the province of Huelva.

In 1714, the Franciscan fray Felipe of Santiago, of La Rábida, collected in writing the foundational legend: the pastor Alonso Gómez, seeing a glow between stones on the morning of December 8, 1470, found two images of the Virgin in the Prado of Osma; one would remain as Santa María de Piedras Alba and the other would go to the Cerro del Águila as Virgin of the Peña. The Romeria, from the Sunday of Resurrection to the "Wednesday of the Burros," on the big day on Easter Tuesday, brings together the "pebbles" of both peoples.

Canonical coronation: not found in the sources.