Audioguide

Castle of A Peroxa

GUIDED TOURS by prior reservation: See timetable section.

The castle is on the site of a castro (a fortified settlement) built by the original inhabitants in the valley of the Rial, a small tributary of the River Miño. In the 8th century, the Temes family ordered a castle to be built here to defend their lands from Muslim raids.

In the 14th century, during the uprising known as the Revuelta Irmandiña, many castles in Galicia were destroyed but A Peroxa was one of the few that survived. Shortly after this event, the castle passed into the hands of the Counts of Ribadavia, becoming the county of the Sarmiento family, and their coat of arms with thirteen roundels became the coat of arms of the municipality.

After being confiscated in the 19th century, it housed various municipal departments, until in 1920, when the building was bought by a private individual who sold the stone from the keep (they say for 3 euros) to build a church in A Peroxa.

Today little is left of what it must have been like in its heyday. It had a polygonal floorplan with four semicircular towers, two of them at the gate. In the centre was the keep. Blocks forming the base of part of the walls can still be seen, plus the foundations of what was once the keep, a mill, a porch and the well to the west of the wall.