The pazo of San Lorenzo in Santiago is a medieval monastery converted into a residential palace. It dates back to the 13th century, when Martín Arias, the bishop of Zamora, founded a chapel dedicated to St. Lawrence. It later became a modest hermitage for Franciscan monks, surrounded by dense oak forest. The pazo’s exterior gardens are more notable for their lushness and diversity of species than for their layout. But the most striking garden is in the very unusual cloister. This space, with an almost square plan (16 x 18 m), is framed by a walkway and arcades, open on the ground floor and glazed above, surrounding a garden of box hedges, trimmed to form designs that over the years have become strange hieroglyphs, which are now hard to decipher. The establishment provides catering for special events.
