Baluarte de San Pedro

San Pedro guards the northeastern angle of the wall circuit, built between 1686 and 1704 as part of the main phase of construction that gave Campeche its full defensive ring. It is distinguished from the other bastions by a crenellated stone crown added above its parapet in the 18th century, a decorative flourish without a defensive purpose that has no parallel elsewhere on the circuit and gives San Pedro a more castellated silhouette than its neighbours. For a period during the colonial era the bastion served as the headquarters of the Inquisition tribunal in Campeche, when the port city was an outlying seat of ecclesiastical authority answering to the tribunal in Mexico City, though it was never among the tribunal's principal offices. That religious-judicial function ended long before the wall was cut back elsewhere in the city, and San Pedro's structure survived largely intact into the modern era. Today the state uses the bastion to host a crafts shop and small exhibition space showcasing regional Campechano handicrafts, textiles and souvenirs rather than a formal historical collection, making it a working retail venue inside a colonial fortification rather than a museum in the strict sense.