In spite of its small area, the history of Mugardos is one of the more outstanding in the Ferrol region.
Although we have found remains of populations between the 5th and the 3rd century with the presence of funerary items called mámoas, typical megalithic tombs in Galicia, nowadays there is no confirmation of these settlements, but there are remains of the hill-fort culture in the sites of As Escadas, San Vitorio, Mugardos and Meá.
There is also evidence of these settlements in the abundant remains of pottery found in the O Seixo inlet and especially in the roman villa of Noville which, according to scholars, was a salting factory from the 3rd-6th centuries AD.
Going forward in time, between the years 820 and 987, moors and Norman pirates attacked these coastal lands. In the Late Middle Ages, Mugardos was under the House of Andrade, after the founding of the San Xoán de Caaveiro monastery by Alfonso VII in the 12th century. Two centuries later, Mugardos came under the jurisdiction of the Santa Catarina de Montefaro monastery, from which it wasn’t freed until well into the 19th century.
Mugardos was the most important town and harbour in the estuary until the modern development of Ferrol in the 16th century. From that moment the Crown decided to build fortifications next to the narrow mouth of the Ferrol estuary, as a support and defence infrastructure. The Castle of A Palma was built in Mugardos, the Castle of San Martiño more to the west —from which only parts of the bastion area remain— and the Castle of San Felipe in Ferrol, on the opposite shore. These fortresses formed a very dangerous fire triangle, and they also allowed for the setting up of a chain preventing the entry of enemy troops, thus playing an important strategic and defensive role in different English and French attacks and invasions between the 17th and 19th centuries, once the Military Naval Dockyards were installed in Ferrol. These were the headquarters of the Northern Military Department.
In 1690, Princess Marianne of Neoburg came to Spain in order to marry the King Charles II. The ferocity of the sea forced her to land in Mugardos. She disembarked at a small, round rock at the foot of the Castle of A Palma. The rock was since then called “Cú da Raíña” (Queen’s Bottom), and nowadays is a picturesque tourist attraction.
In appreciation of the welcome given to the future Queen of Spain by the people of Mugardos, the King exempted all its inhabitants from military service and named it a Royal Town, unaware of the fact that his grandfather, Philip IV, had done it years before. That’s why Mugardos is twice a Royal Town, and hence the two crowns on its coat of arms.