Village
Degaña is a concejo at the southwestern end of Asturias, in the Narcea, with about 770 inhabitants, bordering León. It is a mountainous territory, of glacial valleys with cirques and moraines, closed to the north by the Degaña sierra, with peaks over 1,800 metres, and to the south by the Cantabrian mountain range, which reaches 1,934 metres. Its name, documented as Decanea, may come from Dec Aniam, land colonised by a monastery led by a decanum in charge of ten monks. The town of Degaña, the capital, stands at 852 metres, the highest altitude among Asturian concejo capitals, while Cerredo, its most populous settlement, sits at 1,030 metres. The territory falls within the Natural Park of the Fuentes del Narcea, Degaña e Ibias, and the closure of the coal mines drove away a good part of its residents.
Monument
A small rural church, located in the original core of the village of Cerredo, on a small hill to which the building had to adapt, so its tilt is visible to the naked eye. Declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), it has a single nave and a square 14th-century chancel with a pointed barrel vault linking to an adjoining sacristy, as well as a vestibule at the foot and a side porch. Its most notable feature is the tie-and-collar-beam artesonado ceiling, of Mudéjar tradition and very rare in Asturias, with carved decoration painted black and red with rosettes, stars, plant motifs and some animals. Outside, a slender bell-gable with two round arches crowns the frontispiece.
Monument
An L-shaped dwelling with a courtyard closed by a wall, an hórreo whose thatched roof was replaced by slate and a chapel in one of the corners. The chapel holds an 18th-century Baroque altarpiece dedicated to the Virgen del Carmen and carvings of the 13th and 14th centuries.
Nature
It closes the municipality to the north with very evenly matched summits: Chagonacho, 1,870 metres, Grallos, 1,866, and Rubio, 1,863. Its valleys of glacial origin preserve cirques and moraines, and brown bear, roe deer and wild boar live on its sunny slopes.
Nature
A pass that opens the concejo towards the León town of Villablino, with which it has always kept close ties. There the river Ibias rises, dropping 600 metres over about 18 kilometres, most of it in the first stretch known as Las Adenas. Located in the Cantabrian Mountains at 1,359 metres above sea level, it is crossed by a road called the AS-15 on the Asturian side and the CL-626 on the León side.
Curiosity
Cerredo, Zarréu in Asturian and in its official name, is a parish and settlement in the concejo of Degaña, in south-western Asturias, one of the highest villages in Asturias at 1,030 metres and the most populous among them, even above the municipal capital, which sits at 852 metres and is in turn the highest in the Principality. Its main activity has been mining, with underground and open-cast workings of the Coto Minero Cantábrico within the parish boundary. It celebrates the feast of Saint Roch on 16 August, that of Covadonga on 8 September, that of Saint Barbara on 4 December and, on the second weekend of June, the Fiesta de La Collada, a livestock fair in the area bordering León.
Nature
A pass at 1,315 metres linking the valleys of Degaña and Cangas del Narcea along the edge of the Muniellos Biosphere Reserve; it is a classic viewpoint over beech and oak woods and a legendary climb among Asturian cyclists.
Curiosity
Two slate-built hamlets of the cunqueiro valley where the men turned bowls, plates and kneading troughs out of beech on a pedal lathe; to keep the secrets of the trade they spoke a jargon of their own among themselves, tixileiro.
Historical milestone
The Catastro de Ensenada, drawn up between 1749 and 1756 by order of the Marqués de la Ensenada, recorded thirty families in Degaña engaged in the cunqueiro trade (wooden vessel making) in Tablado alone; in winter the work crews traveled down to Castile, Extremadura and Andalusia to make and sell wooden tableware.
Historical milestone
Hullas del Coto Cortés began working the anthracite in 1919, which made Cerredo grow; in the 1940s the El Mangueiro mining railway was laid and the valley's blocks of workers' housing were built.
Historical milestone
Constituted as a concejo at the beginning of the 16th century, Degaña was suppressed in 1826 and attached to neighbouring Ibias; its residents pressed on until they recovered a town hall of their own in 1863, a condition the territory has kept ever since.