The records of the church in front of you are filled with prime ministers, architects, actors and even a famous robber, because for centuries this was the parish of Madrid's celebrities, the place where everyone in the neighbourhood was baptised, married and buried, from the playwright to the bandit Luis Candelas.
From the outside the first thing you notice is the tower, which seems to stop halfway up, and that's exactly what happened, because the church has stood here on the old road to Atocha since the middle of the sixteenth century, and on the night of 19 to 20 November 1936 . During the restoration, which lasted until 1959, the architect turned the building around and left the tower unfinished.
This church also held the , which meant that anyone wanted by the law was safe within these walls.
Entry is free, from half past nine to one and again from six to half past eight, so in the middle of the day the door stays shut. If you find it open, a second story waits inside, about two chapels and a grave that no one can point to any more.
Sources. Story: Hispanopedia, Iglesia de San Sebastián (Madrid); Ángel Fernández de los Ríos, Guía de Madrid, 1876; Boletín Oficial del Estado, declaration as a monument of 28 October 1969. Photos: Francisco Sancha, the church of San Sebastián, in La Esfera of 24 February 1923, Biblioteca Virtual de Prensa Histórica, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons. Photo of the church: Luis García, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
