Engineer Pat Mackellar’s proposal for move the suburb of San Felipe (and 2)

The present dilapidated condition of the buildings (mentioned in the previous chapter), together with the precarious situation of the inhabitants and the unpleasant way in which the troops were quartered, were more than enough reasons to request the transfer of the Arrabal.

The dilapidated condition of the place was perfectly illustrated in an attached plan in which the houses were categorized according to their state of conservation. It is important to point out that the demolished houses were rebuilt very poorly so that the people who tried to rebuild them lived in them.

In fact, the inhabitants of the Arrabal always lived in a precarious situation. In that place there was never any barracks or simple barracks, except those occupied by the residents, without any other consideration than the future transfer of a plot of land in the area to build accommodation for the replacement soldiers.