Parroquia Santiago de Pardesoa

In this parish there are remains of the dolmen culture on Mount Costoia, one of the highest peaks in the municipality. A stone idol and a polished stone “machadiña” were found there. Near Costoia are the remains of an ancient icehouse linked to the Mosteiro de Aciveiro.
The first known documentary references to the parish date back to 1246, the year in which a knight called García Peláez donated several heirlooms in Parada, Barcia and Pardesoa to the monastery of Aciveiro.

The temple of Pardesoa conserves its original body, from the end of the 15th century, but it underwent several alterations, including one in 1625, carried out by the masters Xoán de Cadavide and Bartolomé Piñeiro, who worked on the main chapel and the sacristy, and a later revision carried out by Pedro de Barro and Andrés García. The current façade dates from 1822 and was built by the parish’s own masters. It consists of three sections: the first, with the lintelled doorway above which there is a small circular window and a fornix with the image of the Virgin; the second, with two raised arches that house two bells, and the third, a small pediment with undulating lines and finished with three pinnacles.

In addition to the parish church, this parish has two chapels, one in San Marcos, from the 17th century, and another in Fixó, from the 18th century, as well as a large number of transepts.

Here, in the first third of the 16th century, Diego de Caña was born, one of the best pipers of this land, from which so many unique bagpipe artists emerged to make the pilgrimages of Montes one of the most famous.