Spring Equinox 2013

La Lanzada, Pontevedra

We visited this small chapel on a once-defended with a tower peninsula sticking out into the sea, but since then they've excavated a castro on the land side of the last sticky-out bit. It's a really nice, cleanly rebuilt castro with stones of many different colours, suggesting that some had been brought to the site from outside.

This is one of those sites with more questions than answers. Obviously the chapel was built here because it was already an important site - the chapel is dedicated to sea-farers, and is still an important place for those who have family working out at sea. But before you get out to the last finger of land, you cross what was obviously once a well defended castle gate with now collapsed tower. While there is plenty of write-up around the castro, the tower has no placard or notice; not even a simple sign with a name that could've offered a clue, such as 'Gothic Tower'. The stones are the same as the castro, but this could mean it was built by scavaging a much older site. The chapel is definitely newer than the tower, and was probably never enclosed by the defensive wall.

My guess is that the castro was built there for normal living, a castle was placed there centuries later with access to the sea to control importing and exporting in an area with very shallow seas for bringing ships in to land. The tower was probably more a gatehouse than a defensive tower, but still readily defended from smugglers and raiders. With sailors coming and going, a small chapel probably got regular donations to increase in size and status, and as the outer walls crumbled, only the church remained maintained.

Vic