Elvas: the garrison town and its water: a self-guided walk

By Alleytale

A UNESCO border fortress, from the castle to the aqueduct

Elvas was a town built to be besieged, so its churches, its museum and above all its water supply all carry the mark of the border.

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The stops

1. 1Castle of Elvas

   Muslim forces held Elvas between the 8th and 12th centuries, and this fortress was built in that period. The castle and the walled town were rebuilt in the 13th and 14th centuries, and between 1488 and 1490 the castle was reconstructed again, with a taller keep able to carry artillery. The Town Gate bears the coat of arms of King John II.

   

2. 2Church of São Domingos

   A Dominican convent was founded here on 20 February 1267, by order of King Afonso III after the final reconquest of the town, beside a hermitage where Christians killed in the capture had been buried. The Gothic apse with its five chapels survives, while the façade is a 17th-century Mannerist one with three portals and a marble statue of Saint Dominic in a niche. When the religious orders were abolished in 1834, the convent became a military barracks.

   

3. 3Old Cathedral of Elvas (Church of Our Lady of the Assumption)

   Work on the present church began in 1517, replacing an earlier Gothic one, and it opened for worship in 1537 with the building still unfinished. It is a crenellated fortress-church with three naves, and the main portal, dated 1550, is Renaissance work by Miguel de Arruda. In 1570 the church became the seat of the new diocese of Elvas, which made it a cathedral.

   

4. 4Museum of Contemporary Art of Elvas

   The museum opened in 2007 in the building that was the Misericórdia hospital, and its architects kept the most important spaces and structural elements. It holds the António Cachola collection on deposit, a collection of Portuguese art that runs from the 1980s to the present. Its Salão Nobre keeps blue and white azulejo panels dated to 1740.

   

5. 5Elvas Cistern

   In the middle of the 17th century, with the engineer Nicolau de Langres, Elvas built this bomb-proof cistern inside its walls so that the town would still have water in a siege or if the Amoreira Aqueduct were destroyed. The aqueduct fed it, it holds 2,320 cubic metres, and it could supply the town for four months. Its roof is a bank of earth that serves as the platform of the fortress wall above, and a Latin inscription at the attached fountain house gives the year 1650.

   

6. 6Amoreira Aqueduct

   By around 1498 the town's only source of drinking water was a single well that was already drying up. Work on this aqueduct began in the 16th century, and it was inaugurated on 23 June 1622 together with the Fonte da Misericórdia. It has 833 arches, stacked up to four tiers high, and UNESCO calls it a key feature that let the stronghold withstand a lengthy siege.

   

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