Parroquia de Santa Mariña de Castrelo

In the archaeological field, this parish is the most representative of the municipality, as it is full of megalithic burial mounds. In the area known as Campo de las Antas, in the vicinity of La Mámoa alone, there are more than twenty burial sites, located on the sides of an old road, the Vreeiro, CAMIÑO DA GEIRA E DOS ARRIEIROS, used by the arrieiros to transport Ribeiro wine to Compostela. They are also present in Tras de la Sierra and La Mina.

The 15th century lanzal Alarma de Barciela tower, located in the church of La Mota, remains in good condition. It has three sections, the first one quadrangular and with a fornix; the second one formed by the platform to emit the luminous signals and house the bell holes, and the third one with a small frontispiece framed by a tile cornice and finished in the past with a pinnacle that is no longer preserved today. The function of this tower, which belonged to the Tower-Fortress of Castro de Montes, was to summon the neighbours, before the construction of the parish church, to the acts of worship and the general meetings of Montes, which met to deliberate in the Campo de la Granxa, or also, later, to alert the population of the incursions of the factious bands that, like that of the famous Guillade, ravaged the region during the Carlist Wars.

The parish church dates from the 16th century, with a later restoration in 1752, carried out by the stonemason Manuel Cadavid and the carpenter Salvador Lorenzo, both natives of the parish itself. It is a regular church in its proportions, with a Latin cross and rectangular chancel, with two chapels that open up into two separate formeiros arches, with a semicircular arch, ending the façade in a slender belfry of two sections.

In the adjoining cemetery you can see works carved by one of the best stonemasons of Terra de Montes, Manuel López Barciela, as well as sarcophagi of prodigious workmanship by another good craftsman, Francisco Villaverde.