The old church of San Pedro Apóstol began to be built in the late 16th century, at the time when the town of Alcantarilla belonged to the Genoese Lázaro Usodemar, on the same site occupied by the original chapel dedicated to San Sebastián. Since the 16th century, the parish church of San Pedro Apóstol and the Plaza de la Iglesia have presided over the old quarter of Alcantarilla.
The church consisted of a single nave, with twelve cloistered chapels connected by semicircular arches. On the main façade, which was soberly decorated in Renaissance style, a slender quadrangular tower stood out, in which the bell tower was located. The façade consisted of two sections; the lower one with two pilastered columns of composite order and a semicircular arch at the entrance, and the upper one with a niche and a small triangular pediment, which housed the image of Saint Peter the Apostle. The side doorway, known as the door of San Sebastián, was located on the main street.
The Plaza de la Iglesia was delimited by a wall and surrounded by trees at the beginning of the last century, and in front of the church was the old town hall building, on the corner of the Calle Mayor, as can be seen in this photograph. From 1945, with the construction of the new Town Hall, the square was urbanised, with the installation of lampposts and a balustrade on the Calle Mayor.
After the church was demolished in 1961, the current parish church was built on the same site, the work of the architect Enrique Sancho Ruano, with only the Chapel of the Aurora, built by the Brotherhood at the end of the 18th century, remaining from the old building.
Currently, in a side chapel on the Epistle side, the image of the Virgin Nuestra Señora de la Salud, patron saint of Alcantarilla, is venerated.
