At 461 metres high, Mount Pedroso is the highest of all the peaks surrounding the city. Located on the right bank of the river Sarela, 40 minutes on foot from the Cathedral, at its summit and in the Parque da Granxa do Xesto we can enjoy one of the best panoramic views of Compostela.
A large quantity of granite was extracted from the slopes of Mount Pedroso, a fundamental raw material for many of the city's architecture and an identifying sign of Compostela's Baroque style. The park known as A Granxa do Xesto is part of this emblematic mountain, a forest which belonged to Pedro Gesto, doctor of the Royal Hospital, today the Hostal de los Reyes Católicos, who in 1681 leased the property to the shepherd Andrés Varela. From then on, Varela's heirs kept the land until 1784, when José Benito Montenegro took possession of it, who later ceded it to the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country to be used as an experimental farm.
When the farm became the property of the City Council of Santiago, in 2000, the municipal body undertook work to restore the environment as part of the Special Plan for the Territorial and Landscape Development of the Mount Pedroso Forest Park.
