Campo del Agua

Campo del Agua began as an old settlement that was largely abandoned when its people moved to the nearby village of Aira da Pedra. Those same villagers later returned to use the site as a summer pasture, and over time it grew into a small community with distinct neighbourhoods, a church dedicated to San Bartolomé, and a chapel to the Assumption. For many years it held the largest surviving group of pallozas, cabins, and traditional hórreos in the Ancares.

In 1989, after the village had been traditionally restored using public money, it burned to the ground. Winters cut it off almost completely by snow, and today its permanent population retreats to Aira da Pedra below, returning only in spring and summer.

The defining feature of Campo del Agua is its pallozas — a form of vernacular dwelling whose roots lie in the circular stone houses of the pre-Roman hill settlements. Almost all the pallozas here are rectangular in plan with rounded corners, built into the hillside so that the uphill wall, known as the *contra turrio*, acts as a retaining structure. The walls are double-faced stone masonry packed with rubble and earth. The most distinctive element is the roof, called the *teito*, made from rye straw laid using the *a paleta* technique. A ridge runs the length of the roof and is finished with bound straw bundles topped with flat slate slabs.

Inside, the space is undivided. The upper level serves as a hay loft, reached by a wooden ladder. Below, wooden enclosures hold calves, known locally as *xatus*. There is no chimney anywhere in the structure; smoke from the hearth finds its own way out through the thatch, which incidentally protects the wooden frame by keeping out woodworm and parasites, and helps cure and preserve meat from the slaughter. Wall niches serve as cupboards. Openings are minimal and exist only as doors — one for the living quarters, one for the stable. Traditional household items survive in some pallozas: the *garmalleira* chain for hanging the cooking pot, the *candeleira* for light, a straw bed for the shepherd, and various tools.

The village also retains a *hórreo* — a traditional raised granary of square plan, set on square stone piers to keep out rodents and damp. Its walls are vertical timber boards, its roof is the *a paleta* thatch style, and the ridge is capped with an upturned bottomless container used as a protective finial, a form once widespread across the area. The roof has been deteriorating in recent years.

The church, dedicated to San Bartolomé and Our Lady of Veiga de Olmo, was struck by lightning and left partly ruined, but was fully restored in 2008 with the involvement of local residents. Some sections of its Romanesque-period walls were preserved in the process.

At the edge of the village are the remains of a *corral de lobos* — a wolf trap used to protect livestock. Wolves were driven or lured with bait such as a lamb into an enclosure they could enter easily but not leave. This type of structure was common across the region, known as a *couso* in Asturias, a *cortello* in Zamora, and a *corral* in León.

The surrounding area includes a zone called the Berrocales, where granite boulders have accumulated into a striking geological landscape of large rounded stones.