Chronology
- 12th century
The majestic Soutomaior Castle bears little resemblance to a military fortress that has its roots in the 12th century. Throughout its eventful history as a center of feudal power, the scene of battles, a noble summer residence and today a public monument that can be visited with a Camellia Garden of International Excellence, it has undergone several reconstructions and renovations to form its imposing and formidable architecture and current profile.
The origin of the fortress dates back to the reign of Alfonso VII, when a military and defensive structure was built in a strategic place in Soutomaior. On one side, the enclosure is located near the coast but at the same time protected from maritime invasions by Normans, Turks or pirates as it stands on rocks, 119 meters above sea level at the bottom of the Vigo estuary. On the other hand, it allowed to control communications from north to south, and dominated the valley of the Verdugo river from its confluence with the Oitavén to the mouth.
The soil on which it sits is also rich for cultivation, which, together with the location for strategic and defensive purposes, made it ideal for dominating the fiefdom.
- 15th century
The castle evolved from a defense tower to a fortress with a double walled enclosure in the 15th century. His central figure at that stage was Pedro Álvarez de Sotomayor, better known as Pedro Madruga. The nobleman also held the title of Count of Camiña, Viscount of Tui and Marshal of Baiona, and there are investigations about his figure that suggest that it could be Christopher Columbus given the coincidences between the two about friends and rivals, as well as the toponymy linked to the Rías Baixas with which more than a hundred places in the New World were baptized.
Pedro Madruga turned the Soutomaior fortress into his center of operations in the power struggles in Galicia at the time. He had disputes with the ecclesiastical hierarchy and with other Galician noble families, such as the Sarmiento family, and positioned himself in favor of the Beltraneja in the War of Succession.
The castle had been destroyed during the Irmandiños peasant revolt, and the nobleman intervened to rebuild it, also adapting it to the use of firearms, which Pedro Madruga had just introduced in Galicia. The enclosure then lived its time of greatest splendor.
- 15th - 18th century
In the following centuries the fortress experienced a long decline due in large part to family disputes. At the end of the 18th century, it would pass into the hands of Benito Fernando Correa, who placed his coat of arms at the main entrance.
- 19th century
In the 19th century the Marquis de la Vega de Armijo would take over the property, and here a key change in the architecture of the castle would take place since the “Gallery of Ladies” was built. The enclosure would thus become half fortress, half neo-Gothic palace, and the family used it as a summer residence.
The formidable park and castle gardens also date from that time, which replaced the cornfields. The oldest trees are chestnut trees, 800 years old, but it also has a fantastic botanical wealth, with large trees and an excellent collection of camellias.
The marquis's niece, María Vinyals, was the next owner. Writer, polyglot and tireless in the defense of women, the noblewoman, known as the "Red Marchioness", was born and spent her childhood in the historic fortress of the Verdugo river valley. Throughout her life, she made friends with other prominent women of her time, such as Emilia Pardo Bazán or Carmen de Burgos. She turned the castle into a meeting place for artists from different disciplines and was also a great traveler. Although she saw a lot of the world, she never forgot her origins and she always confessed that she was in love with her land, about whose beauty she wrote, as well as about the fortress and the historical deeds around her.
To María Vinyals we also owe the knowledge about the ghost of the castle, “O Alemanote”. This, in life a man born and educated in Heidelberg, would have been tutor to the nephew of a previous owner of the fortification. The legend tells that in the basements he would have installed a laboratory and discovered the formula to make the ultimate weapon that would decant World War I in favor of Germany. However, he would perish on a horse outing before putting it into practice. A journalist of the time who visited the castle, invited by Vinyals and Dr. Lluria, her husband, heard the story from the ghost himself, who appeared to him in one of the rooms, and fulfilled his request to destroy the formula.
