Santa María de Gondar

Parish church located in a small rural parish within the Municipality of Lugo, on the left at kilometer 14 of the Fonsagrada highway, which provides direct access.

The parish church is perched above the village atop a small hill that could be the remnant of a pre-Roman fort. Surrounded by a cemetery. The nave has a gabled roof supported on wooden rafters. It has a simple baroque facade topped with a double-arched belfry; sound granite masonry, stone lintel over the main door. The rest of the walls are whitewashed. The presbytery is higher and smaller than the nave, with a hip roof. Triumphal arch, four-planed ceiling, south-facing window. The entire floor, which is slightly submerged, is made of granite slabs. At the main entrance, in the left corner, there is a granite baptismal font (0.90); there are secondary doors on either side of the nave. The sacristy is at the back, with doors on either side of the altar.

Altarpieces and sculptures. The main altarpiece is executed in a simple neoclassical style. Two columns on each side frame the central niche. On one side is Our Lady of Mount Carmel (0.50) on a pedestal composed of three angels, and on the other Saint Roch (0.57). The door of the tabernacle has a relief of Saint John the Baptist. In the top tier is a depiction of Christ (0.57). Two side altarpieces. On the right, in a humble plateresque-like style, is a sixteenth-century niche; Virgin Mary (0.70) with hands joined, pedestal with one angel. The altarpiece on the left, executed in a mid-seventeenth-century folk-style baroque, contains Saint Anthony (0.55), Saint Bartholomew (0.56), and, on the top tier, a relief of Saint Anthony flanked by two angels.

Text © NRC Nicanor Rielo Carballo / Inventario artístico de Lugo y su provincia. Vol. III. Fachada-Ludrio. Madrid, 1980 (English translation © Ayuntamiento de Lugo)