When the bubonic plague reached the Menorcan shores on ships bound from the East and North Africa, the Count of Floridablanca, minister of the enlightened King Carlos III, was commanded by the King to order the building of a lazaretto in Mahon in 1793.
This is an extraordinary, historic medical architectural ensemble, originally devised as a quarantine area for the constant epidemics caused by this disease. The British government had previously built a small enclosure on the Quarantine island which, during the 19th century, was only used at times of great conglomeration in the harbour.
Its facilities started to operate in 1817 and came to a halt over a century later. Years later, and after several remodelling projects, it became a centre for national and international meetings and conferences. Thanks to its magnificent and well-preserved areas and buildings all around the island, it also offers visitors the chance to sense and recreate how people lived in the 19th century.
Declared a Property of Cultural Interest in 1993, it is located in one of the privileged setting on the Menorcan coast, on an island set in the heart of the administrative capital’s harbour.
This is an extraordinary, historic medical architectural ensemble, originally devised as a quarantine area for the constant epidemics caused by this disease. The British government had previously built a small enclosure on the Quarantine island which, during the 19th century, was only used at times of great conglomeration in the harbour.
Its facilities started to operate in 1817 and came to a halt over a century later. Years later, and after several remodelling projects, it became a centre for national and international meetings and conferences. Thanks to its magnificent and well-preserved areas and buildings all around the island, it also offers visitors the chance to sense and recreate how people lived in the 19th century.
Declared a Property of Cultural Interest in 1993, it is located in one of the privileged setting on the Menorcan coast, on an island set in the heart of the administrative capital’s harbour.