Chamorro chapel

Our route starts to head back to the centre of Ferrol along the CP-3603 road and our next stop is the CHAMORRO CHAPEL.

Its construction dates back to the end of the middle ages, probably the second half of the 15th century. Both the late Gothic rib vault ceiling in the chapel, and the typology of the lettering on the inscription of the date of construction on one of the exterior walls seem to indicate so. Regarding the sculpture of the Virgin, some authors confer it an improbable Roman origin. However, it is more likely that it was sculpted in the late-medieval period. The first documented evidence of Chamorro found to date is in a testament by Brother Fernando Fontaíña, a Franciscan monk from the Montefaro monastery, in the year 1499. For centuries, the chapel was linked through the patronage of lay-brothers to the Valerio family who lived in the parish of Serantes from the middle of the 16th century onwards. It has a single rectangular nave and dressed stone walls of granite. The southern wall of the head of the building conserves an inscription which allows us to date it to the first third of the 16th century. The old chapel has a rib vault ceiling of 13 keystones where the stone draws a four-pointed star. The Baroque altarpiece is located here. Legend has it that one day a fisherman whose boat was about to sink below a rough sea begged for help from the Virgin of the north-east and anxiously exclaimed “Xa morro” (“I´m dying” in Galician). The Virgin saved him and since that day the settlement has been so named.

The location, a small hill with a height of 174 metres, is a privileged space from where there are magnificent views of the valley of Serantes, the city of Ferrol and the villages on the banks of the estuary. Every Easter Monday, a religious celebration is held in the surroundings of the chapel, and the tradition of walking up the hill to the foot of “Our Lady from the north east”, as the chapel is also known, remains.