"The municipal cemetery of El Sucu (Ceares) is located surrounded by Pericones Park, in the parish of Ceares, within the urban center of Gijón.

It was inaugurated in 1876, although at that time this location was considered the outskirts of the city.

It has a beautiful terraced design, due to the uneven terrain. The chapel is inspired by medieval architecture, and the oldest part of the cemetery, with funerary monuments of different styles, is also worth a visit.

It was the city's first modern cemetery, inaugurated in 1876, as well as the largest after successive expansions. It received burials until the opening of the Deva cemetery in 1999.

Previous cemeteries

The inhabitants of the Gijón parish only had the cemetery of the Church of San Pedro, with a variable location.
In the mid-19th century, in 1843, a parish cemetery was built on the current site of the San Pedro Rectory, Cimadevilla. It was nicknamed La Visitación (The Visitation) because its first burial was that of Doña Visitación José. It was closed in 1893.

The following cemeteries are noteworthy:

1798: Old Cemetery of the Church of San Pedro.

1840: Provisional Cemetery of Santa Catalina.

1843: Cemetery of La Visitación.

Given the lack of space and sanitation at the previous cemetery, it was decided to build a new one. The location of the cemetery sparked debate, but the final decision was made to build a new one, a promontory considerably removed from the Gijón area of ​​the late 19th century. It was inaugurated on January 1, 1876, and its first deceased was named María García, while her undertaker was José Sánchez Suárez "El Pintu."

The construction work was carried out by Cándido González, who designed the cemetery in a rectangular shape, placing a Neo-Romanesque church at the rear and highest point of the cemetery. The pantheons were built around this church, following a grid, and, further back, the niches, in a design that allowed for the expansion of the streets.
The civil cemetery was built adjacent to the cemetery on its eastern side.

Between 1894 and 1902, the municipal architect Mariano Medarde built a chapel that serves as the entrance to the civil cemetery. The first expansion was carried out in 1908, and from then on, under the supervision of Miguel García de la Cruz, the cemetery was successively expanded, descending the slope of the promontory.

After the fall of Gijón in October 1937, some 1,300 Gijón residents were shot ("paraded" in popular tradition) against the southern wall of the cemetery and later buried in a mass grave. On April 14, 2010, a monument dedicated to the 1,934 victims of Franco's repression was inaugurated within the cemetery.

The municipal corporation, headed by Mayor José Manuel Palacio, proposed building a new cemetery in the 1980s. After evaluating three locations: Tremañes, Cenero, and Deva, the experts decided on the third, inaugurating the Deva cemetery on November 22, 1999, and closing the Ceares cemetery after 123 years.

The cemetery has two hundred pavilions, including those designed by architects Manuel del Busto and Miguel García de la Cruz, both of whom are buried in El Suco, along with dozens of illustrious Gijón residents.

Ceares-El Suco has 32,000 burial spaces and is estimated to have held 151,000 burials."

Raúl Ramos Solar

"A guided tour should be taken because, located in the old Royal Palace of Gijon by Enrique III, it dominates the entire city and stands out for its beautiful pantheons, the Civil Cemetery, the common graves with the wall of executions, the children's cemetery and the tombs of Arturo Fernández and Rosario Acuña among others."

Angel Lewis

"Following the ordinances of Charles III, albeit belatedly, which prohibited burials within cities, this municipal cemetery, both civil and Catholic, was built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It houses numerous pantheons and graves belonging to Gijón families, as well as religious and military congregations and mass graves. It also has a chapel and, until its recent relocation, was used as a forensic cemetery where autopsies were performed."

Danger Very