Its location was formerly home to the primitive Church of Santa Cruz. This Plaza is where Calles Nicolás Antonio, Mezquita, Santa Teresa and Plaza Alfaro converge. The primitive Church of Santa Cruz was erected in 1391 by the city council during the era of Enrique III of Castille over a synagogue in the same location. This temple was expropriated and demolished on Wednesday, July 11, 1810, by the French occupational government of that time, as part of a broader plan to redevelop the city, giving rise to the open space that currently forms the Plaza.
The current appearance of the Plaza derives from the urbanization planned by Juan Talavera y Heredia in 1918. The Plaza is presided over by a wrought iron cross made by Sebastián Conde in 1692. It stands in the centre of the garden that decorates the Plaza. Until 1840, this cross stood on Calle Sierpes, where it met with Calle Rioja. The cross is designed as a cross lamp, with four snakes emerging from it, symbols of Calle Sierpes, its original location. On their heads, there are angels carrying wrought iron lanterns. According to some historians, the true name of the Cross was the “Cruz de las Sierpes”, or “Cross of the snakes”, by Alejandro Guichot. The Cross was moved to its current location in 1918, during the remodelling of the Plaza de Santa Cruz, designed by the architect Juan Talavera y Heredia.
The guiding cross used during the procession which opens every Fat Tuesday by the Brotherhood of Santa Cruz is a reproduction of this Cross that presides over the Plaza. This guiding cross, in the image of the one presiding over the Plaza, is the work of the Orfebrería Hermanos Delgado López workshop of Seville, built in 1998. On the facade of the building to the west of the Plaza, there is a memorial plaque installed by the Academy of Fine Arts in 1858 commemorating that the location was the site of the primitive Church of Santa Cruz, where the famous Sevillian painter, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was buried.