Church of San Martiño de Lalín de Arriba

The Church of San Martiño de Lalín de Arriba originates from an ancient mixed Benedictine monastery founded in the 10th century by the Bishop of Mondoñedo, Árias Peláez, with the aim of welcoming and assisting pilgrims travelling along the Winter Way of the Camino de Santiago. Although the monastery disappeared in the 14th century, the church built in the 12th century has been preserved. It consists of a single rectangular nave with an apse, to which a sacristy was later added in the 18th century. The western façade is almost completely preserved and contains the main doorway, formed by a semicircular arch with two archivolts resting on pairs of engaged columns, whose inner capitals are decorated while the outer ones remain plain. The tympanum is unadorned, and the façade is crowned by a simple single-arched bell gable. On the lateral walls there are Romanesque corbels, narrow slit windows and numerous stonemasons’ marks, particularly visible on the southern wall. Inside the church, the triumphal arch stands out. It is a semicircular arch resting on columns whose bases are decorated with claw motifs and whose capitals feature vegetal decoration. The apse preserves an ornamented window with an archivolt supported by decorated columns, including a capital carved with scallop shells, a symbol closely associated with the Camino de Santiago, as well as an ancient slit window that is now blocked. Near the church stands the oldest stone cross in the municipality, dated 1675, completing this ensemble of great historical and religious interest. Surrounded by the rural landscape of Lalín, the site helps visitors understand the historical importance of this place within medieval pilgrimage routes and in the religious life of the region.