Village
Silleda is a concello in the Deza district, in the province of Pontevedra, with around 8,900 inhabitants, situated by the Deza river, close to the geographical centre of Galicia. Until the mid-19th century the town council was called Chapa, and later changed its name to the present one. It hosts the Feira Internacional de Galicia, home to the Semana Verde and to an international aquaculture fair, in a venue with the largest covered street in Europe, as well as the Benedictine monastery of San Lourenzo de Carboeiro, in Romanesque style and founded in the 10th century over the river itself. Its territory also contains the Toxa waterfalls, among the highest in Spain, along with the fervenzas of Férveda and Graba.
Monument
The monastery of San Lourenzo de Carboeiro, whose founding charter is dated to around the year 936, stands on a meander of the río Deza, in the parish of Santa María de Carboeiro, in the territory known as Trasdeza, whose name refers to the charcoal-burning activity that made use of its dense forest vegetation. Its church, with three naves and a transept, from the twelfth century, is one of the finest works of late Galician Romanesque; it retains an ambulatory with radiating chapels, an exceptional solution in Galician architecture. It enjoyed its period of greatest splendour between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, and the information about its history is owed chiefly to Father Antonio de Yepes, who visited it in 1600. It has been a monumento histórico-artístico (former Spanish heritage-protection category, predecessor of the Bien de Interés Cultural) since 1931.
Monument
The ponte Taboada is a medieval bridge that spans the río Deza on the boundary between the parishes of Taboada, in the municipality of Silleda, and Prado, in that of Lalín, giving its name to the small locality of A Ponte Taboada, in Taboada, which in 2007 had barely 6 inhabitants. A Latin inscription near the bridge traditionally dates it to the year 912, although recent studies point to later reconstructions.
Monument
An 18th-century neoclassical church built in the parish of Abades; it is one of the busiest pilgrimage sanctuaries in the interior of the Deza comarca and holds a Marian image with a long local following.
Nature
The dolmen of A Chousa Nova, in the parish of Abades, was found intact during works on the high-speed rail line between Ourense and Santiago, and carbon-14 tests date it to around 4350 BC, among the oldest dolmens in Galicia. Its chamber, made of five granite slabs, preserved the grave goods intact: a necklace of thirty-five amber and variscite beads laid over what appeared to be a human chest, an adze by the head, a chisel near the hand and a whetstone under the feet, a symbol of luxury. After the excavation, the route of the high-speed line was diverted into a tunnel, above which the monument was rebuilt in its exact original location, the slabs having been kept for almost two years in a warehouse in Silleda. It stands in a region dotted with Neolithic mámoas and Iron Age castros.
Nature
A waterfall on the Toxa river in the parish of Pazos, municipality of Silleda, with a drop of more than 60 metres, located in a spot of great scenic value in the comarca of Deza, next to the monastery of San Lourenzo de Carboeiro, founded in the 10th century by the counts of Deza. The meeting of the oceanic and Mediterranean climates allows for varied vegetation of oaks, birches, cork oaks and laurels, and the riverside forest surrounding the waterfall is home to species such as the otter, the kingfisher, the badger and the peregrine falcon, as well as trout that attract numerous anglers. It can be reached from the N-525 road by taking the La Bandeira turn-off towards Pazos, near Merza.
Nature
The brañas de Xestoso are a natural area included in the Natura 2000 network and declared a special area of conservation, extending across the municipalities of Forcarei, Silleda and A Estrada, between the Ulla, Deza and Umia rivers, and home to the lagoa Sacra de Olives, its main body of water, and Mount San Sebastián. The area combines several ecosystems: heathers and hygrophilous legumes dominate the low scrub, grasses the herbeiras, lichens and rushes the peat bogs, and heather and carqueixa the transition zones towards the wet meadows, alongside siliceous outcrops and oak woods. Its fauna includes the buzzard, the falcon, the booted eagle, the little bustard and the viperine snake, as well as various species of frogs and toads.
Curiosity
The municipal flag bears thirty-three stars, one for each of the parishes that make up the municipality, an uncommon heraldic device that sums up at a glance how scattered its settlement is.
Monument
The Ponte do Demo crosses the river Deza between the parishes of Carboeiro, in Silleda, and Fontao, in Vila de Cruces, near the monastery of San Lourenzo de Carboeiro. It is a construction of the Late Middle Ages to which oral tradition attributes a supernatural origin: it is said to have been built by the demo -the devil- in a single night, commissioned by the monks of the monastery, in exchange for the soul of the monk who asked him to build it.
Monument
The church of San Pedro de Ansemil, in the parish of the same name in Silleda, is all that remains of a medieval monastery of Benedictine nuns, neighbouring the nearby monastery of Carboeiro, whose origins possibly go back to the 9th or 10th century, under Bishop Sisnando. The female community disappeared in the 12th century and was not re-established until the 13th or early 14th century, when the funerary chapel of the counts of Deza, attached to the south wall, and the north portal were built. The Romanesque temple, with a basilical plan of three naves and three apses, was completed around 1171; notable are its capitals and, above all, the exterior corbels of the eaves. In the 16th century the community joined the monastery of San Paio de Antealtares, in Santiago.
Nature
The castro of Toiriz, also known as Eira dos Mouros, is an Iron Age archaeological site next to the hamlet of Toiriz, on the outskirts of Silleda, and the most notable of the roughly twenty castros identified in the municipality. Although it has not been excavated, its location and the remains found suggest that the settlement was built around the 4th century BC. It consists of two walled enclosures, a circular one at the top of the knoll, the Eira dos Mouros itself, and another on a lower level attached on the south and east sides, protected by an outer ditch and parapet. The castro is the subject of numerous popular legends that give it a certain mystical character, and it has information panels. It was restored in 2010 by the Colectivo pola Recuperación dos Castros de Toiriz.
Activity
The Semana Verde de Galicia is a primary-sector fair held every year, in May or June, at the Silleda fairground, inaugurated in 1996 by King Juan Carlos I. It has been held since 1978 and brings together sectors ranging from forestry to livestock farming, including food, with the Salón de la Alimentación del Atlántico, as well as craft exhibits, new technologies, machinery and equestrian and canine competitions; its aim is to promote agricultural, agro-industrial, food, commercial, social and educational activities in the Galician countryside. Throughout the year, the same site also hosts other machinery, food and tourism trade shows, which has made Silleda a permanent venue for professional events in the Galician primary sector.
Historical milestone
Around the year 936, the counts of Deza established a Benedictine cenoby on the riverbank, the future monastery of San Lourenzo de Carboeiro, in the municipality of Silleda (Deza comarca), near the confluence of the Deza and the Ulla. It is one of the most outstanding late Romanesque ensembles in Galicia: it experienced its greatest splendour between the 11th and 13th centuries, the period to which the Romanesque reconstruction preserved today belongs. Its name comes from the production of charcoal in the area, as it is referred to in the oldest texts as Carbonario or Karuonario. Thanks to restoration work carried out since the second half of the 20th century, its church and some monastic outbuildings are well preserved.
Activity
The Festa da Empanada da Bandeira is celebrated in the carballeira da Pomba, in the town of A Bandeira (Silleda), on the third Saturday of August since 1974, centred on the Galician empanada in its maize and wheat versions; it was declared de interés turístico nacional (a Spanish official designation for festivals of touristic interest) in 2024, having previously been de interés turístico de Galicia since 1999. It is the focus of a competition with categories for individuals and for restaurants, in which a jury judges taste and presentation before the winning empanadas are publicly auctioned off among the public, with some fetching as much as 2,400 euros. The festival is rounded off with an opening address and a communal lunch and dinner accompanied by brass bands, traditional groups and orchestras, and coincides with the Esmorga Folk and Bandeirock festivals, held on the preceding days.