The line of the Wall did not coincide with the limits of the city founded by Paulus Fabius Maximus three hundred years earlier in 15-13 BC but moved them some 100 m. north. This was because a previously inhabited area of the city to the southwest stood on lower ground, which would have made that part of the Wall too vulnerable from above. As a result the Wall embraced two cemeteries - or necropolises - in the north, which would normally have been kept outside a city's limits or pomerium, and other necropolises came into play south of the new boundary.

The Wall was made using cement (opus caementicium), which incorporated a large number of earlier funerary and votive altar stones, and faced with slabs of slate and blocks of granite. The whole was possibly coated with a thin layer of mortar, giving it a snowy white appearance from afar. It is not, therefore, hollow as is sometimes thought. The body of cement that exists today is clearly still Roman, unlike most of the face of slate and granite, which over the centuries has fallen away and had to be replaced. A good example of the different materials used in different periods is Miqa Gate and its two towers, clad with granite below (Roman) and slate up above (medieval). Such maintenance and repairs were initially the Bishop of Lugo's responsibility, until the middle of the 18th century, when that responsibility passed to the Town Council (until 1973), the State (until 1994) and finally Galicia's autonomous government, the Xunta. In 1321 the Wall was declared a National Monument and in 1985, an Asset of Cultural Interest. Important restoration work was carried out between the years 1972 and 1974, work that is currently being continued.

In between the original Roman gates 85 towers projected outwards, of which 72 remain: 61 semicircular and 11 rectangular. A further (semicircular) tower has been reclaimed round by the Cristina Redoubt. The towers had possibly two floors with four openings in each, from which archers and the like would have seen off unwelcome visitors. Part of one of these floors still stands in an area of the Wall known as the Mosqueira. Some centuries ago (we read in Bartolomi Molina's Viaje al reino de Galicia and elsewhere) the towers had windows and chimneys, which, along with the presence of ovens, indicates human habitation of some kind. A staircase, serviced by a ladder (you'll see that the steps do not reach the ground), afforded rapid access to some or all of the towers. Those that have been recovered are concealed by rusty or reinforced iron grates and no longer used.

Not only did people live on top of the Wall but also against the outside. In 1972, at the start of the 1972-1974 restoration in which 17 of the 72 towers were rebuilt, 81 buildings were removed from against the outside and lawns were laid. The cut marking the slope of their roofs is visible at various points around the Wall (for example, left of Miqa Gate and right of False Gate) and a photograph showing the hostels on either side of St Peter's Gate can be seen in the RENFE office off the Main Square.

A drainage and defensive ditch originally surrounded the Wall, crossed by bridges and more or less following the line of houses on the other side of the ring road (Ronda da Muralla).

WALK

Climb up onto the Wall by way of the 19^th-century ramp opposite the main fagade of Lugo's Cathedral (perhaps the best time to do this is mid-evening). To your left is Santiago Gate, the first of the old gates and possibly Roman. The decoration on the inside reveals that this was an exit-gate, used by the canons until 1589 to attend their allotments outside the Wall. St James (Santiago) is depicted as slayer of Moors (Matamouros) with the Bishop of Lugo's coat of arms and the year, 1759, certain changes were made. Ahead of you, behind the baroque balustrade, is the former road to Santiago. In one of the two towers, referred to as the Muriega Tower, the people of Lugo assembled on 2 January every year to elect their sole representative in the Town Hall.

Head right. You are now on the southwest side of the Wall, favoured by swifts and locals to soak up the sun (hence the benches). The next gate along, Miqa Gate, is the one most confidently claimed to be Roman. The [power half of granite and the upper half of slate indicate a Roman and a medievaI phase. The gate contained a guardhouse, later converted into a chapel, and so it is interesting to have a look below. The only problem is that between the gate and a narrow path slightly further on to your right, which will take you there, is Lugo's red-light district. You might prefer to leave it till later and view the gate from the ring road. This is a shame since the red-light district, though daunting, is very fine, having been the city's smart quarter during the Ancient Regime. From underneath the gate you can see where the guardhouse, later chapel, was until the end of the Ancient Regime (18th century) and the flutes that received the first gate. There was probably a second, inner gate. On the inside a staircase from the left led up to a balcony, through an arch (whose outline is visible) and into the guardhouse on a wooden floor supported by beams. Here the road from Braga in northern Portugal arrived, over the river Miqo, after which the gate is named.

Continue along what is known as the King's Wall (though which king someone forgot to mention). Notice the rectangular towers, against whose sunbaked walls people came and sat in the days before central heating. You are now at Bishop Odoario Gate, set at an angle to follow the line of the Wall. It was opened rather dramatically in 1921 by the use of dynamite, which occasioned the declaration of the Wall as a National Monument. Begun seven years later, it gave access to the new St Mary's Hospital opposite (now used for educational and cultural purposes).

Heading more or less north, you'll come to two battlemented towers and one of the original Roman staircases. If you peer carefully over, you'll see how the steps do not reach the ground. Presumably, therefore, a wooden ladder was used, which could be placed and taken away at will. Then you'll come to New Gate, the third of the old gates and most probably medieval. This medieval New Gate, similar to St Peter's, with a guardhouse (later chapel), by 1899 was in ruins and had to be demolished, only to be replaced the following year by a new New Gate, a narrower version of Bishop Aguirre Gate, which required certain modifications to be made in the Wall. The northern tower was cut back to half its former size and the staircase, the first of the Wall's five modern staircases, redirected. Note the sealed openings on the inside of the parapet, below the present line of the Wall and staircase. Worthy of mention is a fig tree shortly before New Gate on your right. Its roots appear on the other side, causing some to think that here was the original Roman gate, replaced in the Middle Ages by a New gate slightly further north.

Past a tower with embrasures and another Roman staircase you'll soon arrive at St Ferdinand's Gate, the first of the modern gates (1853), widened in 1962 and set at an angle like Bishop Odoario Gate. Here the Roman aqueduct entered the city from the northwest, answering the people of Lugo's needs until the beginning of the 20th century. To your right, better observed from the 19th-century staircase round the corner that leads down to it, is the delightful Ferrol Square, the site of an important Roman necropolis. Head down for a moment and sit on one of the benches. From here I imagine you can see the fourth of the old gates that still exist today, False Gate, originally a posterula or Roman military gate, which was blocked off for centuries and reopened in 1622. This is when St Bartholomew's Hospital in the middle of the square - of which only the chapel remains (the rest burnt down in 1878 and the present nuns' school was built) - was moved here from the Main Square and access was needed. On the outside, during the 19thcentury Carlist Wars of succession, was a small fort. Traces of the mortar and a second arch are visible.

Climb back onto the Wall and continue your walk, perhaps after some refreshment and a tape of pig's ear (orella) in one of the bars. On your left is the impressive seat of the Galician autonomous government or Xunta, erected in 1997. Beyond, the fertile Lugo countryside. Immediately on your right you'll reach the back of Lugo Provincial Council and some magnificent magnolias. On your left, the trade unions' building. You are now approaching Station Gate, opened in 1873, as the name implies, to provide easy access to the new railway station down below. The staircase was soon added and the gate itself remodelled in 1918.

Return to the Wall. In the distance are the unmistakably beautiful mountains of the east of Lugo province. Continue over St Peter's Gate and ahead of you are the symbolic remains of one of the tower floors, the Mosqueira Tower. To your right, the last of the modern staircases, remodelled in 1890 to replace a staircase further on, where Prison Gate (1888) now is.

At this point, until 1837, you would have had to leave the Wall since here was a castle and, after its demolition in 1757, the present-day houses. In 1837, however, the Cristina Redoubt before you was constructed to defend the city in the first of the Carlist Wars. It was named after the queen regent, Maria Cristina. As you walk along the V-shaped redoubt, leaving the original line of the Wall, note the blockedoff portholes on your left and the reclaimed tower to your right indicating the original line of the Wall. To the left of this tower was the Porta Castelli or Castle Gate, a Roman gate in the south, where the road from Astorga in Leon would have arrived.

Text: Jonathan Dunne

Photographs: GrahamWatt

Layout: Anton Busto

For further information contact

Para mais informacion contacts con:

Jonathan Dunne - 61 Hare Lane - Claygate - Surrey KT10 OQX- ENGLAND.

THANKS TO THE XUNTA DE GALICIA FOR HER COLABORATION.