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Tower of Doncos

As Nogais, Ancares, Lugo

1 Villages · 3 Monuments · 5 Nature · 1 Historical milestones · 1 Food and drink

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Tower of Doncos

Monument · As Nogais, Ancares, Lugo

Doncos tower is what remains of the old fortress of Santo Agostiño, declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 1994, sited atop a hill at 620 metres above sea level, on the strategic pass from El Bierzo into Galicia along which the Roman road from Braga to Astorga once ran. It is a square tower of slate masonry, eight metres to a side, with three floors and a basement hewn into the rock, surrounded by the remains of a walled enclosure with the ruins of a cylindrical turret. It belonged to the estate of the Valcárce family, and in the 14th century it was owned by García Rodríguez de Valcarce; it passed to the Count of Ayala in the 15th century and to Fernando de Toledo in the 17th, by which time, in 1603, it was already considered abandoned, and it was left devastated during the French invasion. It commanded the pass towards the Pedrafita mountain gap above the Navia valley.

Photo: FirkinCat (CC BY-SA 3.0 es)

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