Our Lady of the Caldas

Dominican Sanctuary of Las Caldas de Besaya (Los Corrales de Buelna)

Next to the Besaya River and a thermal spring, the Dominicans have since 1605 kept a venerated Gothic image famous for their miracles; one of the great Marian shrines of Cantabria, linked by their Order to the spread of the Rosary.

Origin and history

Next to the Royal Road and the Besaya River there was a small medieval hermitage of the village of Barros where a Gothic image of the Virgin of the XIII- XIV centuries was already venerated, whose origin is unknown. In 1605 the people of Barros gave the hermitage to the Dominican friars of the convent of Regina Coeli of Santillana del Mar, attracted by the fame of his preaching. Since then the Dominicans have taken over the cult, and throughout the 17th century the hermitage has become a great Baroque convent with church and cloister, which became a major Dominican seminary and is now declared Good of Cultural Interest.

Devotion is sustained by a long tradition of favors and miracles, recorded in vows and writings from at least 1564, which gave the sanctuary a fame as a place of special intercession, reinforced by its thermal environment, associated with health requests. Being entrusted to the Dominicans, Order historically linked to the preaching of the Holy Rosary, the sanctuary lives within that rosarian spirituality, the usual framework of its Marian worship.

Own liturgical feast, formal patronage and canonical coronation: they are not recorded in the sources.