Old Ericeira: a fountain, a pillory and the fishermen's beach: a self-guided walk
By Alleytale
A fishing town on foot, by the sea
Ericeira grew around its fishing port, and the places on this walk are ones the town built, prayed in and gathered at, from a fountain first built in 1457 to a casino that became a cultural centre and a pillory that marks its charter.
The stops
The Cape Fountain, at the southern entrance to the village, was first built in 1457 and restored in 1829. Its top has scrollwork and a curved pediment with an eight-pointed star medallion, and until the 1970s a masonry washtub beside it served as a public washing place. Local legend says that anyone who drinks the water falls for Ericeira for good.
Photo: GualdimG — CC BY-SA 4.0 A hermitage of Our Lady of Necessities stood here in 1484, a place of devotion linked to cures of the plague. The present chapel was built on its site in 1760 and has a gilded carved altarpiece typical of 18th-century church art. Inside are images of Our Lady of Necessities, Saint Martha and Saint Lucy.
Photo: Vitor Oliveira from Torres Vedras, PORTUGAL — CC BY-SA 2.0 In 1919 Joaquim Ferreira turned the Clube Recreativo Ericeirense in this building into the Grande Casino da Ericeira. When the casino's closure was ordered in 1927 he made it a cine-casino, and it closed for good in the 1970s. It reopened in the 1990s, renovated, as a cultural centre named after Jaime Lobo e Silva, a historian and musician from Ericeira, with an exhibition gallery, a library and an auditorium.
Photo: GualdimG — CC BY-SA 4.0 This church was built in the 17th century on the site of an older chapel of the Holy Spirit. The Santa Casa da Misericórdia of Ericeira was founded in 1678 by Francisco Lopes Franco, procurator of the counts of Ericeira. If you step inside, the paintings on the ceiling and the choir are worth looking up at.
Photo: Vitor Oliveira from Torres Vedras, PORTUGAL — CC BY-SA 2.0 Ericeira received its first charter in 1229 and a new one from King Manuel I in 1513, and this pillory was probably built after that. It has an octagonal base of two steps, a plain round shaft and an octagonal capital with rosettes, and an iron ring for holding prisoners is still on the shaft. It stands in front of the building that used to be the council hall and is now the parish council.
Photo: Vitor Oliveira from Torres Vedras, PORTUGAL — CC BY-SA 2.0 The parish church began in 1466 as a small chapel of Saint Peter and was enlarged several times from 1658 until it reached its present size. In the chancel you will find four paintings on canvas of the life of Saint Peter, a carved wooden altarpiece and tabernacle, and Baroque statues. The cross in front of the church was put up in 1782.
Photo: Jules Verne Times Two — CC BY-SA 4.0 A small chapel at the cliff edge at the north end of the village, probably built around 1500 by the local people, though popular tradition says the Moors built it. Its plan is unusual for the region: a hexagonal core with a nave and chancel. It was rebuilt in 1678, and the inside was probably covered in carpet-pattern tiles in the 17th century. Visitors in that century recorded dances and banquets held here by the brotherhood of São Sebastião, made up entirely of unmarried young men, until a visitation in 1702 forbade them.
Photo: Vitor Oliveira from Torres Vedras, PORTUGAL — CC BY-SA 2.0 This is the sheltered harbour of Ericeira's fishing fleet, and colourful boats sit on the sand. On 5 October 1910, after the revolution, the 20-year-old King Manuel II left Portugal for exile from this beach, bound for the royal yacht D. Amélia waiting offshore.
Photo: Herbert wie — CC BY-SA 4.0
Hear the full story as you walk, or create your own walk, in the Alleytale app.