St. Francis Church, Santander

The church of San Francisco is a Roman Catholic, apostolic and Romanesque, eclectic temple, located in the Cantabrian city of Santander; it stands at No. 9, Calle de los Escalantes. It is the work of the Santander architect Javier González Riancho, one of the most prestigious architects of Cantabria, who designed it in the mid-twentieth century after winning the competition for projects in 1940, being inaugurated in 1953. It belongs to the bishopric of Santander, and is included in the lists of the artistic-religious heritage of Cantabria.

The church stands in the historic centre of the city, next to the Esperanza market and very close to the town hall, on a site occupied since the 13th century by a Franciscan convent of great historical importance, which came to rival the abbey of the Holy Bodies in the 15th century, demolished in 1896 to build the aforementioned market buildings and the town hall. Of the complex there remained a church built in the 17th century, the former parish church of St. Francis of Assisi, demolished in 1936 to finish the town hall building and to build the new church in its present location.