El Trapiche, just 2.5 miles from the capital of the municipality, and westernmost in its jurisdiction, is one of the oldest towns in the north of Gran Canaria. It lies on a large ridge occupying a large area between rivers, which falls in gentle slopes between the Los Palmitos ravine to the east and the Quintanilla ravine to the west.

Like many other island towns, it takes its name from the activities associated to sugar cane crops and trade at the end of the 15th century, and the name has now lasted for over five centuries. Indeed, its origins are closely linked to the sugar processor installed there until 1645, when it ceased to process the product. These devices were constructions, practically factories, that were generally located close to water courses (ravines, irrigation channels, etc.) and to the plantations themselves.

A settlement arose around the device, consisting of cane cutters, quality supervisors (lealdadores) or sugar masters, the owners and drivers or working beasts, workers of all kinds and servants. All these people, attracted by the agricultural industry, built their homes in the vicinity of the sugar-making device, forming a small village which in 1684 built a chapel called El Ángel.

Of the buildings of outstanding architectural value, some of the most important are the farmhouses, largely located in the Guinea, the structure and distribution of which are related to agriculture, and traditional houses built out of brick and with flat or gabled roofs.

In 1920 El Trapiche was “demoted” to the category of village, because of the fall in the population arising from the collapse of the sugar market, the cessation of maritime traffic caused by World War I (1914-1918) and a fearsome epidemic of Spanish flu with a large number of fatalities.

The El Trapiche Church has a single transept, with a choir at its feet and a vestry above it. It has a gabled roof and is decorated with peak-shaped motifs on the top. The neo-Gothic facade is framed by corner pillars and consists, on a vertical plane, of a pointed arch, an oculus and a pointed gable end. It is made out of painted cement. This building is now part of the catalogued Architectural Heritage of Arucas (1996). The El Trapiche parish also has a church-owned cemetery in El Fielato, next to the road leading to Lomo de Quintanilla.

Another of the attractions of the El Trapiche district is, without a doubt, the incredible views from two vantage points called La Carabela and Los Dolores, contemplating part of the municipality: the Bañaderos coast, the Los Palmitos ravine, El Hinojal and part of the Arucas Mountain.