| Jirón Áncash | |
| Part Of: | Damero de Pizarro |
| Namesake: | Áncash Department |
| Terminus A: | Jirón de la Unión |
| Terminus B: | Óvalo de la Paz |
| Completion Date: | 1535 |
Jirón Áncash is a major street in the Damero de Pizarro, located in the historic centre of Lima, Peru. The street starts at its intersection with the Jirón de la Unión at the Puente de Piedra, and continues until it reaches the Óvalo de la Paz.
The road that today constitutes the street was laid by Francisco Pizarro when he founded the city of Lima on January 18, 1535. In the 16th century, the Church of San Francisco was built. An event of repercussion recounted by several chroniclers would happen there. They point out that during the earthquake of 1630, an image of the Virgin Mary turned her face towards the main altar of the church just at the moment the movement stopped. The people of Lima, within their Catholicism, interpreted that the mother of Christ turned to see the saint and appease the fury of her son who was causing the earthquake. Given this fact, the Miracle Chapel (Spanish; Castilian: Capilla del Milagro) was built on the same site it occupies now.[1] Likewise, the Colegio Mayor de San Felipe y San Marcos was founded on that road, which would later be refounded in the Convictorio de San Carlos. The San Ildefonso School was also located on that same block.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, several monasteries were founded on this road. In 1808, outside the Gate of Wonders (Spanish; Castilian: Portada de Maravillas), where this street ended, the Presbítero Maestro Cemetery was built, the first general cemetery in Lima. In 1956, El Ángel Cemetery was built. This motivated the sector of Jirón Áncash where both cemeteries are located to be called Cemetery Avenue (Spanish; Castilian: Avenida Cementerio).In 1862, when a new urban nomenclature was adopted, the road was named jirón Áncash, after the department of Áncash. Prior to this renaming, each block (cuadra) had a unique name:
In 1868 the Walls of Lima collapsed and with them the gate disappeared. At the end of the 19th century, the Desamparados station was established as the main railway station of the Central Railway that penetrated towards the Andes to the city of Huancayo.
In 2005, the former facilities of a colonial house were discovered discovered during excavations for the construction of a building. The area is currently the Bodega y Quadra Museum, a site museum that illustrates the daily life of the locals during the Viceregal era.[3]