Chapter 3 - CHRISTIANS and MUSLIMS

Of all the attributes credited to the Romans after conquering and firmly establishing their rule in the Iberian Peninsula, the most profound and lasting was their introduction of the Christian religion.

Prior to the 1st century AD, the Romans were already a highly religious people. In their daily lives, they were devoted to a great number of gods and goddesses. With the Emperor Constantine came the conversion to Christianity and belief in one almighty God.

Legend has it that the apostle Paul brought the gospel to the Iberian Peninsula in 40AD, but there is nothing to substantiate this. More likely, the Romans introduced Christianity in the 2nd or 3rd century AD.

The Algarve was part of the Roman province of Lusitania when the Iberians and Celts began converting from their multi-deity paganism to the new religion. By then the Romans had forced the indigenous peoples out of their hilltop fortifications and resettled them in towns (citânias) each with a centre of administration and justice. They had developed industries such iron smelting and brick and tile-making, built roads and bridges, and opened schools teaching Latin - the basis of modern Portuguese.

The Romans may have established the first fortress in the Porches area at the place we now call Crastos, a word derived from the Latin Castrum, meaning the site of a defensive position. Alternatively, they may have built fortified walls and perhaps also a temple on a nearby narrow headland with sheer 30-metre cliffs on either side. The present chapel is believed to have been constructed at least in part from Roman ruins.

According to local legend, the chapel commemorates an apparition of the Virgin Mary and thus it acquired its name, Ermida da Nossa Senhora da Rocha, Chapel of Our Lady of the Rock. Its most obvious ancient features are the capitals on top of the two pillars in the arched entrance. The one on the right is manifestly Visigothic. The one on the left is heavily weathered but probably dates from the same period.

From their Germanic roots in the western part of the Holy Roman Empire, the Visigoths brought to an end the centuries of innovative Roman rule and created a sprawling kingdom that included the most southern and westerly parts of Europe. At first, the Roman Christians regarded them as heretics. With their Arian beliefs, the Visigoths held Jesus Christ in high esteem but rejected the notion that he was the divinely created son of God. In the late 6th century, however, they came around to accepting the Catholic faith and fully integrated into the culture of the Hispano-Romans. Everything suddenly changed in the year 712 with the arrival from North Africa of invading Muslims.

The latest newcomers were known in Christian Hispania by the Latin word maurus, meaning people from Mauritania, or the Greek mauros, meaning ‘dark’. The Moors, as they came to be known in English, gave the name Al-Andalus to southwestern Spain and Al-Garb to southwestern Portugal. As followers of the prophet Muhammad, they immediately came into conflict with the Hispanic Roman Catholics.

The Christian uprising against the Moors in Portugal – the Reconquista - began before Portuguese national independence was declared in the north of the country the 11th century. The Reconquista progressed sporadically southward, interspersed by major defeats and setbacks – and also long periods of regional peace. 

Intermittently during the first two centuries after their occupation, the Moors had to contend with a foreign irritation along the shores of Iberia in the form of marauding Vikings from Scandinavia. Later, rivalries became even more complicated with warfare between two major Islamic dynasties, the long-established and puritanical Almoravids, and the Almohads, a fiercely reformist movement that originated in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco.

During the centuries of Moorish occupation, many Christians converted to Islam, either spiritually or nominally. In the periods of relative peace, the Moors contributed immensely to the culture and way of life of ordinary people. In Porches, as elsewhere, they transformed agriculture by introducing new crops and farming methods, including more efficient irrigation systems. Meanwhile, across the country, the population increased along with prosperity even though Reconquista fervour continued to simmer. At times in the Al-Garb in the 12th and 13th centuries it more than simmered. It raged furiously.

Chelb, modern Silves, less than 10km from Porches, became the capital of Al-Garb under the Almoravids. The Almohads seized it in 1156.  A busy city, it had a population of 20,000 or 30,000 inhabitants, twice the population it has today. The Arab geographer Idrisi, who lived from 1100 to 1166, recorded firsthand observations while travelling extensively in Portugal and elsewhere in Europe. He noted that Silves was “fine in appearance with attractive buildings and well furnished bazaars.” It had a port with a shipyard and a thriving trade dealing mainly in fruit and fish with African and Mediterranean ports. The people of Silves spoke pure Arabic and were particularly eloquent and fond of writing poetry. Both the upper and lower classes were elegantly mannered. Idrisi was less complimentary in his praise of Lisbon, describing it simply as “a compact and well-defended town.”

Aside from its architectural elegance, thriving commercialism and rich culture, Silves was noted for its mighty Moorish castle next to a mosque on the high point of the city. This was the scene of savage battles in which Portuguese forces were led or supported by passing Crusaders from northwestern Europe on their way to the Holy Land.

The first important year for the Reconquista in the Algarve came in 1189, the year of the 3rd Crusade. The Portuguese king D. Sancho I asked passing crusaders from Denmark and Friesland to attack the castle in Alvor, 13 km southwest of Silves. Six thousand men, women and children were said to have been killed during that battle.

 That same year, Sancho struck a deal that resulted in a combined Portuguese, English, German and Flemish fleet setting sail from Lisbon for Silves in mid summer. On the fourth day out of Lisbon, the fleet sailed up the Arade River and anchored close to the capital. Those living in the lower part of the city quickly fled to the better-protected upper part. As the Christians advanced, burning everything in their path, the Muslim civilians took sanctuary within the castle walls.

The Christians lay siege to the castle. The defending Moors held out for 49 days before the Christians managed to mine their way in for a second time and cut the main water supply. A condition of their surrender was that the Muslims could leave the castle with whatever possessions they could carry. As they left, however, the Crusaders stripped them of their belongings and sent them empty-handed on a 200 km trek to Seville, the nearest Moorish bastion. The Crusaders looted the castle for three days before the disgusted Portuguese king ordered them out of the castle and back to their ships.

The following summer, Almohad forces from Seville tried to retake the city. That this attack failed was partly due to the fortuitous arrival in Lisbon of a Palestine-bound fleet under the command of England’s Richard I. ‘The Lionheart’ sent a contingent to help with Silves’ defence. The summer after that, Richard’s Crusaders were in Acre in the Kingdom of Jerusalem when the Moors returned once more to Silves to exact revenge for their 1189 humiliation. All of Sancho I’s previous victories south of Lisbon were nullified as the Almohads recaptured Silves and swept through southern Portugal leaving towns in ruins. Another five decades were to pass before Silves was finally conquered by the Christians.

We can only hazard a guess as to what impact these dramatic events had on Porches, a small village and fortress outpost, close by and within Silves’ heavily contested control. But Porches played an unlikely culminating role.

Final victory for the Christians came in the reign of Sancho II and was led by his top military commander, Paio Peres Correio, master of São Tiago. He attacked Estômbar, 6 km southwest of Silves, and then went on to overcome Moorish strongholds all over the Algarve, including the castles at Alcoutim, Castro Marim, Tavira, Salir and Alvor.

Faro and Albufeira fell during the reign of Sancho II’s brother, Afonso III. That left just three Moorish redoubts: Loulé, Aljezur and Porches. Upon the capture of Porches from the Moors in 1249, Alfonso became the first ruler to use the title King of Portugal and the Algarve.

Chapter 4 – ROYAL RECOGNITION

No one knows the origin of the place name Porches, but there have been some interesting guesses. One suggestion is that it dates back to Hispania Lusitania, the Roman province that included much of Portugal and part of Spain. The word Porches has disappeared from the Portuguese language but is still used in Spanish and means the same as ‘porch’ in English. It is thought to have been used in Roman times to denote a slightly elevated space with a fine view. That would have been a fitting name in the days of long ago.

Others have suggested that Porches may have evolved from the word ‘Portimunt’, which was used by a Crusader writing about the conquest of the Moorish capital of Silves in the 12th or 13th century. He was referring to one of the capital’s fortified outposts. Porches was just that at the time. The Crusader cannot have been referring to Portimão because it was not a fortified place. Yet another theory is that Porches derived from Portius or Portia, the name of a Roman family living in the Algarve.

Porches is pronounced the same as the plural of that famous make of German cars. Any resemblance to the cars ends there. There is nothing fast or sleek about the village or the parish. And there never has been.

The earliest known written record concerning Porches was a document issued in either 1250 or 1252. It proclaimed that D. Afonso III had given overall rights to the fortress and neighbouring lands at Porches to one of his nobles, Estevão Anes. The precise location of this original village or Porches (Porches Velho) is not known for sure but it is believed to have been much closer to the sea than the present village.  Nor is it clear if the fortress referred was the fortified headland of Nossa Senhora da Rocha or a separate bastion.

As far as is known, nothing further was officially recorded until 1286, the landmark year when Afonso III’s son and successor, D. Dinis, issued a royal charter laying out the way Porches was to be administered. The king was only 25 at the time but the charter was an early indication of the focus of his reign that would last 46 years.

D. Dinis, who became known as the ‘Farmer King’ (Rei Lavrador), placed far less emphasis on military affairs and more on civic and judicial organisation, agricultural development and bolstering the rights of the lower classes.

Written in Latin, the charter began: “In the name of God, amen. Let it be known to all those present as future generations that I, D. Dinis, by the grace of God King of Portugal and the Algarve, jointly with Queen D. Isabel, my wife, daughter of the illustrious King of Aragon, make this charter to you the people of Porches, both present and future…..”

The charter was intended “as a way of maximising energies for social and military organisation in the extreme south of the country.” It gives a fascinating glimpse into the way of life in the 13th century.

Overall control in Porches was in the hands of a nobleman appointed by the king. Members of the Knights Hospitallers religious military order were among its most distinguished inhabitants and thus endowed with considerable rights, but the charter also sought to protect citizens’ freedom and promote trade.

A council of officials was to be elected by the local people, each with specific fields of responsibility such as justice, salaries, commerce and taxes. It was clear from the 1286 document that fishing and farming were the main economic activities in the area, as they were all across the Algarve.

Seventy-five percent of the population of Porches specifically identified in the charter were military men. Of those fifty-five percent were knights. Top officers, crossbow men, foot soldiers and legal officials accounted for the other twenty-five percent of the military.

The remainder of those covered by the charter included roughly equal numbers of clergy, merchants and artisans.

The main commodities produced and traded in the area seem to have been cereals, rice, bread, wine, fish, figs, olives, vegetables, salt, livestock, leatherwear, linen clothes and handicrafts, especially practical everyday things like utensils.

The king kept some key facilities and enterprises for himself and his successors. For example, he reserved the rights to all saltpans, windmills, slaughterhouses, bread ovens and baths. He insisted on being patron of all existing and future churches – and on all whaling activity in the Porches area.

The king kept ownership of all the fig trees and trading stalls handed down by the ‘Saracens’, meaning the previous Muslim monarchs. Other stalls were owned by Porches inhabitants who paid a monthly licence fee. Traders from outside the area were charged a toll per cartload of goods brought in, but there was no toll on the way out provided they were carrying an equivalent value of local produce. 

Winemakers were strongly discouraged from ignoring the stipulated resting period for wine after fermentation. The first two violations brought about fines. A third resulted in the all the vintner’s wine being thrown out and his vats and other containers being destroyed.

The charter laid down a comprehensive system of taxes on everything from hauls of fish and trade in donkeys to the buying and selling of Moorish slaves. Even noble landowners and monasteries had to pay dues to the king. Bakers had to give him one in every 30 loaves of bread.

The currency at the time seems to have been a mixture of soldos, marabotims and mealhas. Soldos were a gold coin currency originally issued by the Romans but still widely in use in medieval Europe. Marabotims were a gold currency based on the dinar introduced by the Moors and still in use in southern Portugal after the Moors relinquished power. Mealhas seem to have been used most in markets and travelling fairs.
       Crime during the reign of D. Dinis was punishable by fines, some of which seem disproportionate by today’s standards. For example, murder or rape attracted a fine of 500 soldos. Those guilty of murder outside of Porches got away with a fine of just 60 soldos – the same as for a person who drew a weapon in anger even if though no one was injured. A fine of 60 soldos was also levied on those guilty of verbal abuse.

No one was allowed to seize or harm a clergyman caught in a shameful act with a woman, but the woman herself could be seized.

The owner of a property who killed a violent intruder was fined one marabotim. If the intruder was only wounded, he, the intruder, had to pay half a  marabotim. Half a marabotim was the fixed tax on buying a Moorish slave – the same price payable to the king by those from outside the Porches area who wanted to purchase a vat of Porches wine. Half a marabotim was also the tax on every mule, hinny or horse that men from outside the parish bought or sold, whether worth ten marabotims or less. All of the inhabitants of Porches, including the underprivileged were exempt from death duties.

Some of the arrangements seem quite odd nowadays. If a horse killed someone, the owner had to pay with the horse or settle up in some other agreed way. If cattle became lost, the inspector of taxes could impound them for three months and after that do whatever he wanted if the owner did not show up.

In summary, the royal document concluded that those who firmly respected the charter would receive blessings. “Those who act against it will be damned by myself and by God,” declared D. Dinis.

Chapter 5 – PIONEERS AND PIRATES

In an exceptionally busy reign that started at the age of 18 and lasted until his death in 1325 at the age of 63, King Dinis, through his royal chancery, officially designated many cities, towns and villages in addition to Porches. He also defined the nation’s borders, stimulated national identity and arranged unprecedented international trade agreements. With a personal passion for the arts and literature, he declared Portuguese the country’s official language and founded Portugal’s first university.

While none of this had a direct bearing on the parish of Porches, a couple of his other initiatives were much more relevant. He oversaw the structuring of the Portuguese navy as an effective force and set up the Order of Christ. The latter was a purely Portuguese order for members of the religious-military Knights Templar organisation who sought sanctuary from banishment across most of Europe on charges of heresy by Pope Clement V.

Just 25 km west of Porches, largely due to Portuguese sea power and Order of Christ funds, things began happening in the 15th century that would change the direction of world history. The central figure was an Anglo-Portuguese prince, Henrique, who became known in the English-speaking world as Henry the Navigator.

It is highly likely that young men from Porches were involved in the planning, building, refitting and provisioning of ships in Sagres and Lagos during the Age of Discovery. Some probably joined the crews of caravels setting off from Lagos to sail down the west coast of Africa into the unknown. In two incredible, revelatory years - between 1444 and 1446 - as many as 40 of Prince Henry’s ships sailed beyond the southern edge of the Sahara Desert over which the Muslims had long monopolised commerce. The Portuguese thus placed themselves in the forefront of exploring new lands and developing trade in such valuable commodities as gold and slaves. The opening of a sea-route to India followed, as did the establishment of a Portuguese empire and the expansion of the slave trade across the Atlantic.

What astounding tales of adventure on far-off shores must have filtered through to the people of Porches locked into the grind of subsistence farming. And local fishermen in small boats must have marvelled on stories about the doldrums, Monsoon winds and vast open oceans. Information seeped in slowly at first but after several disjointed decades an ever clearing picture must have built up of life out there far beyond the horizon. It must have been one of contrasts that evoked mixed emotions.

For those, especially the young, entrapped in working the land or coastal waters of Porches, a new life of opportunity abroad must have seemed attractive. At the same time, accounts of the deprivation and sickness suffered on long return voyages on open decks and crowded holds on slave slips must have made the people of Porches grateful indeed for small mercies at home.

It is often overlooked nowadays that slavery was a two-way trade. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the parish played its part in the defence of this section of the south coast against pirates and privateers from North Africa. Some of these were based in Tunis, Tripoli and Algiers on the Barbary Coast in the Mediterranean and were thus known as the Barbary corsairs. Much closer to home were pirates and privateers from Tetuoan and Salé, just a day or so’s sail away in Morocco. These unromantic Maghreb marauders, operating either as freelances or under the authorisation of Arab states, had been active during the Moorish occupation of the Algarve. In the fifteen and sixteen hundreds  they considerably stepped up their activities. Attacks along the coast of the Algarve coast were almost common.

Mauraders seizing ships was one thing, but of greater concern to the people of Porches and elsewhere were organised raids on coastal villages and towns. The attackers’ objectives were not only to plunder material goods, but also to seize Christians as slaves. Barbary and Moroccan corsairs carried off hundreds of thousands of European men, women and children as slaves, mainly from coastal villages in southern Italy, Spain and Portugal. So feared were the corsairs in their heyday that many southern European villages were almost completely abandoned. While the precise location of Porches in those days is not known for sure, it is likely to have been near the coast and rather isolated. Historical records indicate that in 1560, Porches Velho –‘old’ Porches - as it is now known, shifted inland to the site of the present village.

In his 1841 book Corographia do Algarve , Baptista Lopes noted a fierce battle fought due east of Cabo Carvoeiro in August 1554 between a notorious corsair, Xaramet-Arraes,  and vessels of the Algarve coast guard. That action was probably not far from Nossa Senhora da Rocha – and Porches Velho.

Later that century, the British also became a menace along the Algarve coast. They were at war with Spain and Portugal was under Spanish control at the time. After famously “singing the King's beard” in a devastating attack on Spanish warships in the Bay of Cádiz in 1587, Sir Francis Drake patrolled the waters off the Algarve to intercept galleons supplying the 'invincible' Spanish Armada being assembled in Lisbon. The people of Porches and other villages along the coast may not have been much bothered by the British interception of Spanish vessels. What would have concerned them were Sir Francis Drake’s devastating attacks on fortifications at Baleeira, Sagres, Beliche and St Vincent.  Even worse was the destruction of Faro in July 1596 by a British fleet under the command of Robert Devereux, the 2nd Earl of Essex

The walled and naturally fortified headland of Nossa Senhora da Rocha, and that of nearby Cabo Carvoeiro and the watchtower at Alfanzina, would have allowed early warning of such attacks. The military fortification or castrum mentioned by both Afonso III and Dinis in the 14th century may have been manned in the 16th and 17th to give protection to the inhabitants of Porches.

Armação de Pêra would have been an easy landing spot for pirates and privateers had it not been for the fortress built there in the 16th century during the reign of João III. Situated at the eastern end of the cliffs, the fortress had a commanding view over the sea and the beach now used by local fishermen. Like Armação de Pêra today, Porches in the 16th century was under the jurisdiction of Silves. The people of Porches were able to count on the degree of security provided by Armação de Pêra’s fortress  – and others at Carvoeiro, Ferragudo and Praia da Rocha - right up until the corsair menace had been largely brought under control in the 18th century. 

By then there were other, less dramatic hardships to be endured on a daily basis. While it had been at the very nerve centre of the Age of Discovery, the Algarve was a remote and backward region. It was bypassed by the Age of Enlightment that in the first half of the 18th century had already brought great social change elsewhere in Europe. Conditions were so dire in places like Porches that many farm workers and fishermen migrated to other areas of Portugal and to Spain in search of better incomes to provide for their families back home.

And then, in 1755, Porches and the whole of the south coast were to face a natural catastrophe unequalled in the history of Europe.

Chapter 6 - REDUCED TO RUBBLE

The so-called Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 devastated not only Lisbon, but almost all the towns and villages along the entire southern coast of Portugal. In fact, the Algarve was much closer to the earthquake’s epicentre and suffered proportionally far more destruction than Lisbon.

In Porches, three main shocks and a series of aftershocks on the morning of 1 November, All Saints’ Day, totally destroyed 238 houses and severely damaged the parish church and the chapel of São Sebastião. The village and all outlying buildings and historical vestiges were almost totally demolished.

In Lagoa, the parish church, a fort, a major convent and many well-built houses were destroyed. Of the houses and religious buildings left standing, the majority were severely damaged.

In Silves, the castle walls, the cathedral, the town hall and other public buildings and most of the houses were destroyed. The remaining houses were damaged.

The tsunami that followed the earthquake overwhelmed Armação de Pêra. It killed 67 people, destroyed the fortress, the São António Church and half the houses. Most of the rest of the buildings in the town were badly damaged. The tsunami is believed to have measured up to 20 metres in height and penetrated 2.5 kilometres inland.

The most extensive flooding was in the area between Alvor and the Arade estuary at Portimão. A chapel on the beach by Alvor harbour was destroyed completely leaving no trace of its foundations. The floodwaters almost reached houses at an elevation of 30 metres 660 metres inland.

From the epicentre of the earthquake southwest of Lagos, The tsunami took 16 minutes to reach Cape St Vincent and 30 minutes to get to the Spanish border. With decreasing force, the effects of the tsunami were felt as far away as the Caribbean and the British Isles.

Measuring at least 8.5Mw, this was the worst earthquake known to hit Europe before or since. Overall, it reportedly killed up to 70,000 people. A more recent estimate, based on historical data, puts the death toll in Portugal at between 15,000 and 20,000, of whom more than 1,000 and perhaps twice that number lived in the Algarve. The proportion of the population who died in the Algarve was low relative to the capital city because most inhabitants here lived in single-storey houses in low-density communities and so there was a greater chance of speedy evacuation.

Such was the widespread carnage, it cost Portugal between 32% and 48% of its Gross Domestic Product - probably a lot more in the Algarve - making it the greatest natural catastrophe in Western Europe in financial terms. The Algarve economy did not emerge from the ruins of 1755 until the advent of tourism in the second half of the 20th century.

In the weeks and months after the calamity, inhabitants of Porches and elsewhere in the region had to live in makeshift arrangements while reconstruction got underway. Starvation was averted because subsidence farming could continue even though much labour had to be diverted into rebuilding homes.

Fishing, however, was so severely disrupted that Portugal’s dynamic prime minister, The Marquis of Pombal, nationalised the important sardine industry. He did this under a “Restoration of the Kingdom of the Algarve” programme.

By then, Pombal had introduced strict measures to deter looters, to bury the dead without delay and to lower the risks of pestilence. His government went on to impose price controls on basic foodstuffs such as cereals and olive oil. Among the many other emergency measures, Pombal sent extra troops to the Algarve to guard against those from outside the region who might seek to take advantage of the highly vulnerable situation on the south coast. He had in mind the old enemy, pirates and privateers from North Africa.

Stringent building regulations were introduced throughout Portugal after the earthquake and these have been frequently updated since then. Today, the Algarve has a comprehensive range of emergency services, mindful that large earthquakes have occurred in the centuries before and since 1755. In recent years, special emergency plans have been developed for various seismic catastrophe scenarios.

Professor David Chester of Liverpool University is among those who have researched and written not only about the impact of the earthquake on the Algarve and how the region recovered, but about the lessons to be learned.

He has noted: “Today the Algarve is one of Europe’s principal tourist destinations and a region vital to the Portuguese economy. The 1755 earthquake was not a one off event and the Algarve, which now houses a resident population of over 400,000 – a figure that more than doubles with tourists in the summer months - is highly exposed to earthquakes and tsunamis. An earthquake of similar size is viewed as a worse-case future scenario with a minimum estimated recurrence of 614 ± 105 years.”

Fault line and 1755 epicentre southwest of the Algarve

Chapter 7 – RECOVERY AMID UPHEAVAL

Porches Velho, with its roots in medieval or even ancient times, had been abandoned in the mid-16th century and never rebuilt on the same site. The relocated village of Porches, which had existed for almost two centuries before being destroyed by the great earthquake, was rebuilt after the calamity and then expanded where it is situated today. This took place gradually between the second half of the 18th and the first half of the 20th centuries.

Population and habitation records, based on counts by priests rather than official censuses, suggest that in 1722 there were 483 people living in 127 dwellings in the parish as a whole. The records of the 1755 earthquake devastation show 238 dwellings destroyed – and it was a century before this number was exceeded. In 1802 there were said to be a population 643 living in 147 homes. An official census in 1864 showed that the population has risen to 1,106, In 1900 it was up to 1,319 more thah 300 homes and in 1911, there were more than 1,400 inhabitants in 320 homes.   

Eighteen years after the earthquake, Lagoa left the jurisdiction of Silves. Its official status having been elevated from village to town, it became a municipality in its own right. It was not until 1834 that Porches was transferred from the municipality of Silves to that of Lagoa. This ended an association with Silves that had spanned four and a quarter centuries. During that time, Silves had deteriorated considerably from its halcyon days as the Moorish capital of the region.

When the English writer Robert Southey visited in 1801, Silves far from impressed him. He was unable to find lodgings and could not get into the castle because the key was held by an official in Portimão. He described Silves’ 16th century Gothic cathedral as “an old and unremarkable church.” In a charnel house, “I saw skeletons almost whole, with ligaments entire and skulls with the hair on,” he wrote. “Is it because they bury all in the church and are obliged often to empty the vaults? The custom of covering them only with wood is very disgusting.”

Meanwhile, the granting of municipal status to Lagoa had been done in the name of D. José I. The power behind the throne at the time was the highly controversial Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, who had recently been made Marquis of Pombal.

Having acquired enormous prestige from his forthright leadership and organisational skills in handling the terrible aftermath of the earthquake, Pombal went on to become a ruthless dictator. He swept aside all political opposition in implementing bold and wide-ranging economic and social reforms. In strengthening the role of the state, Pombal persecuted the Jesuits and curtailed the activities of the Inquisition. He introduced an ecclesiastical system in Portugal that has been described as “a sort of disguised Anglicanism.”  

Although a despot, Pombal was respected throughout the land as an innovative, no-nonsense statesman. Even among many in the clergy, his leadership qualities continued to be admired until his death from leprosy in 1777.

The extremely difficult years for Porches and Portugal as a whole in the second half of the 18th century continued through out the 19th and into the 20th. In sharp contrast to its position as the world’s main economic power between the 15th and 17th centuries, Portugal underwent economic and social upheaval as it became engulfed in conflict between its ally, Britain, on the one hand, and France and Spain on the other. This led to successive Spanish and French invasions, the capture of Lisbon by French forces in 1807 and the Peninsular War that lasted almost six years.

The Portuguese royal family and most of the nobility were living in exile in Rio de Janeiro having fled from forces of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Brazil, which had long been a colony, was given kingdom status in what became known as ‘the Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarve.’ The year after D. João VI’s return to Lisbon following the Peninsular War, Brazil declared its independence.

By then, relations in Portugal had been shattered between the Catholic Church and revolutionary liberals who vowed to curb the clergy’s powers. The death of João VI in 1826 led to a crisis of royal succession and a six-year civil war between the liberals under João’s eldest son, Pedro, and authoritarian absolutists under Pedro’s younger brother, Miguel. The absolutists had the backing of landowners and the clergy, but it was the liberals who emerged from the civil war victorious. Alexandre Herculano, a liberal intellectual who became a highly acclaimed novelist and Portugal’s best-known historian, blamed much the country’s “decadent” past on the Church. Now, he said, Portugal was in the process of being “reborn.”

Throughout this tumultuous period, the original parish church, the Igreja Matriz de Nossa Senhora de Encarnaçao, continued to be by far the most prominent building in Porches. It was during the long drawn out, dogged and determined recovery from the ruins of the earthquake that parish churches like the one in Porches were rebuilt to regain or surpass their former splendour. 

Built on its present site in the 16th century, the earthquake destroyed much of the Igreja Matriz de Nossa Senhora de Encarnaçao. Many believed it had been as a result of the ‘wrath of God’ rather than a natural phenomenon. All that remained was the chancel, the focal part of any church where the altar is located. Its ribbed arched ceiling survived. Today, the walls are still decorated with tiles from the 17th century. The altarpiece of the high alter has gilded carvings and images dating from the first half of the 18th century.

The church’s west-facing main doorway in neoclassical style, the large window above, decorated with a royal crown, and the single nave flanked by four chapels were all added in the 19th century thanks to funds donated in 1882 by António Joaquim Cabrita, a major landowner in the area. Cabrita was born of a Porches family in 1807 and baptised in the parish church. He became a wealthy bachelor and after supporting the church for many years, made his final bequest in a will signed in the Lagoa notary in 1879. He died in 1881. 

As in rural areas throughout the Algarve and the rest of Portugal, illiteracy was still normal among the people of Porches in the 19^th and early part of the 20th century. The power of the monarchy and the Church were seen as the major causes for the chronic lack of education. The mood became ever more strongly anti-clerical and in favour of left-wing republicanism that perceived the monarchy to be inefficient and corrupt. The most extreme of republicans wanted both the monarch and the Catholic Church abolished. Following the assassination in Lisbon of Portugal’s penultimate king, D. Carlos, Portugal’s First Republic was proclaimed on 5th October 1910.  

Following France’s example, a Law of Separation was introduced to disestablish the Church. Divorce, civil marriage and secular cemetery burial were all legalised. Church property was confiscated and nationalised; religious orders were banned; the Jesuits were expelled from Portugal; priests were forbidden to teach; neither prayers nor crucifixes were allowed in schools; the wearing of clerical garb in the streets was prohibited; so was the ringing of church bells and the staging of religious festivals. Times had indeed changed. The Catholic Church was no longer the persecutor. It had become the persecuted.

Republicanism espoused strong democratic principles and greatly strengthened the role of parliament but it failed to live up to expectations. The people were no better off or any freer than before. Disillusionment led to yet more political strife. This was further aggravated by deep division between liberals and conservatives over whether Portugal should take sides in the First World War.

Violent street clashes, political assassinations, military coups, currency devaluation and economic depression eventually ushered in a military dictatorship in 1926. This gave rise to Portugal’s Second Republic - or the Estado Novo (the‘New State’) as it became known. From 1933, even small and relatively remote places like Porches found themselves subjected to a new form of stability imposed under the political leadership of António de Oliveira Salazar.

Chaptr 8 - 20TH CENTURY TWISTS AND TURNS

During the 40 years between the establishment of the military Estado Novo dictatorship in 1933 and the ‘Carnation Revolution’ of 25th April 1974, the state suppressed civil liberties and political freedom in order to remain in power. It firmly opposed any form of left-wing politics or independence for Portugal’s colonies in Africa. This oppression was felt mainly in the cities and larger towns of Portugal, but not even small communities like Porches were immune.

Salazar’s admirers, now as then, highlight the benefits of his dictatorship. The strong sense of nationalism he created engendered pride and self-belief, at least among the minority upper class. It re-established confidence within the Catholic Church. Sweeping reforms encouraged economic growth and social stability. The overbearing powers of the police and the justice system minimised crime. Much emphasis was placed on education. A state elementary school was built in Porches as in many small communities across the country where none existed before. For most, though, schooling lasted for only four years, from the age of seven to eleven. Only the brightest pupils from well-to-do families were able to go on to higher education in the towns and cities. And so a new generation of generally under-educated and in many cases still barely literate young people emerged.

Salazar’s detractors say that while landowners and business leaders flourished at home, a large number of young people were obliged either to serve in the armed forces to maintain Portugal’s foreign territories or to emigrate and seek lowly work in democratic countries, such as France, the UK and Canada.

Throughout the chaos of the First Republic and during most of the tightly controlled years of the Second, the parish of Porches remained a quiet backwater. The village was even smaller than it is today. Narrow streets such as Rua da Igreja, Travessa da Igreja, Rua António Joaquim Cabrita, Rua da Praça, Rua Directa and Rua do Rocio were cobbled with characteristic Portuguese calçadas. The streets were lined with small, terraced cottages devoid of electricity, running water or bathrooms. Here and there stood a few relatively large houses with gardens and other amenities.

The resident population of the parish during the first half of the 20th century was only a little higher than in the previous century. It fluctuated between 1,300 and 1,400, dipping in 1960 to 1,265. There were a couple of small, dark, grocery shops in the village. A small post office with a rare telephone close to the church was kept busy, not only as a conduit between local residents and far-flung relatives, but by selling bread.

Agriculture was still by far the principle economic activity. Vineyards supplied grapes for winemakers. Almonds, olives and figs were produced in some quality, carobs to a lesser extent. The sandy soils were not ideal for cereals but some barley and a little wheat were grown, as were a variety of vegetables. Livestock were raised on a small-scale for their meat, or as draught and pack animals. Horses, mules and donkeys helped plough the land and transport goods and people.

Farming started to decline in the early 1960s because of inefficient farming methods, the dwindling size of farms due to the inheritance system, and young people turning away from working the land to take up easier and better-paid employment in the towns. The decline was hastened by the profound change in the economic and social structure of the Algarve brought about with the advent of tourism. Like Albufeira, the next fishing village to the east, and Carvoeiro and Praia da Rocha to the west, Armação de Pêra was “discovered” by a few intrepid visitors from abroad. Tourism would eventually transform the coastal skyline as well as the economic focus of the area.

Armação de Pêra in 1949

The first to recognise and develop Armação de Pêra’s foreign tourist potential was a Portuguese couple called Oliveira Santos who were living in Lisbon but wanted to move to the Algarve. Francisco Oliveira Santos was an artist. Neither he nor his wife, Maria Margarida, had any experience of the hotel business, but in 1960 they commissioned an architect to draw up plans for a 50-room quality hotel on the cliff top at the western end of the long beach. It is thought they were able to get special permission to build so close to the sea, and receive help with funding, only because they had a friend who was close to Salazar. In those days, Salazar’s personal approval and backing was needed for all important projects throughout the country.

Armação de Pêra was a small, nondescript village with narrow streets and a few cafés. Remarkably, besides the ruins of an old fort, the beachfront road boasted a casino where men could gamble while their womenfolk crocheted and kept an eye on the youngsters dancing. Also on the beachfront were a few private houses, one with two storeys, but certainly nothing as grand as a hotel. The area overlooking the sea now occupied by serried ranks of high-rise apartment blocks was just farmland.

Having named their hostelry the Hotel Garbe (it is now  the Holiday Inn Algarve), Francisco and Maria Margarida Olivira Santos opened in 1962 when there were only four other hotels in the whole of the Algarve. There was no regional airport at the time. Access to the Algarve was by a slow train or along a narrow, long and winding road from Lisbon, or by ferry across the Guadiana River from Ayamonte in what was then a remote corner of Andalusia.

In the early years, most of the Hotel Garbe’s guests were British. “Those were the great days where almost everybody would come down to the bar for cocktails before dinner,” recalled Jacqueline Franco, the hotel’s first reception manager. The gentlemen wore smoking jackets and the ladies long, chic dresses.

The cutlery was Cristopfle from France and the china Vista Alegre from Viseu. The bedcovers were hand embroidered. The tariff for a room and full board for two in summer was between 487 and 772 escudos per night (equivalent to €2.40 and €3.85).

Astra Almeida d’Eca, wife of the first professional photographer to take pictures of the hotel, remembers: “The bar at that time was small, but all along the front of the hotel was a wide veranda that also served as a bar. Late into the summer nights, you could enjoy the sight and sound of elegant people who just felt good. On festive days, there used to be fireworks in the village and from the veranda, you could enjoy the show. It was all set in an almost tropical garden that went right down to the beach - but later when the pool was built the garden had to go!”

The hard-working Mrs. Oliveira Santos took charge of the hotel, allowing her husband to get on with his painting. Known to all as Dona Guida, her day started with a shopping trip to Portimão market at 5am. If you wanted the best fresh vegetables and fruit you had to go to Portimão rather than Lagoa or any other closer market - and you had to go early. During the day, Dona Guida ran things from the hotel’s lower ground floor. In the evenings, she and her family and friends, a group of ten or more, would eat in the main dining room at a big round table in a corner from where she could keep an eye on things.

The staff all knew they could come to Dona Guida with their problems. She always managed to come up with a solution. She had a small crèche created so that children could be looked after while their mothers were working in the hotel. Some of the younger members of staff fell in love, married and had children. Dona Guida was often asked to be a godmother.

At the start of the building boom in the Algarve in the mid-1960s, the Hotel Garbe’s guests often included land speculators from abroad. Local landowners were keen to sell because farming was on the way out and their land was of no interest to anyone other than newcomers from outside the region who wanted to build. There were times when seven or eight guests at the hotel would be vying for the same property. “Great fun for us,” recalls Jacqueline Franco.

The Hotel Garbe had two motor boats, which were booked either for water-skiing or for trips to nearby grottoes. It was probably from one of these boats in 1966 that George Ansliy, an Englishman staying at the Garbe, picked out a pristine spot on the cliff tops above the tiny beach of Praia da Gaivota, a little west of the hotel. He bought a number of small plots of rough land and melded them into a single 11-hectare site with the idea of developing it into a luxury estate similar to the finest he had admired in Sardinia. To begin with, Ansliy created a few villas in prime frontline positions overlooking the sea, and a restaurant of a standard previously unmatched in the Algarve.

Ansily’s son-in-law - Lara’s father – was a Portuguese artist called José Almeida Araújo. He designed the first buildings and gave them soft, rounded lines at a time when virtually every building in the Algarve was square or rectangular. Instead of the standard white of virtually every other building in the region, Ansily and Araújo had the walls of the complex painted the colour of sand to give the impression that they had been hewn out of the surrounding terrain. The exclusive retreat was renamed Vilalara in honour of Ansily’s newborn grandchild, Araujo’s daughter. 

Vilalara’s innovative elegance in such a spectacular and private location appealed to the rich and famous. Early individual villa buyers included the actress Eva Gabor, the British socialite Lady Annabel Goldsmith and the distinguished British politician Lord Duncan Sandys. An entrepreneur living in Switzerland, Leon Levy, stopped by for a holiday and was so hugely impressed that two years later he acquired Vilalara and turned it into a “private club”.

When it came to adding blocks of low-rise apartments, the original architectural theme was picked up and developed by the Algarve architect Ramiro Laranjo. It came to be regarded as a “hidden utopia” that provided the highest degree of exclusivity for the most demanding of clients.

Lady Goldsmith is reputed to have always brought a butler with her on visits to Vilalara. She enjoyed swimming in the sea in front of the estate but was so concerned about excessive sun on her skin that she would never lingered on the beach. When swimming, she wore a long-sleeved blouse over her bathing costume.  

Eva Gabor and her fifth husband, the American aerospace industrialist Frank Jameson, senior vice-president of North American Rockwell, spent their honeymoon at Vilalara in 1973. Their holiday home was eventually bought by Winston Churchill Jr, grandson of the wartime prime minister. The German playboy Gunter Sachs, who famously married Bridget Bardot, greatly admired Vilalara too. It is said that the Aga Khan liked it so much he borrowed the concept for a resort in Sicily.

All this was two decades before Vilalara became renowned as Portugal’s first thalassotherapy centre and went on to attract personalities as diverse as former US President Jimmy Carter,  Princess Diana and world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson.

In 1964, two years before Ansliy took that inspirational boat ride, a honeymooning Dutchman and his German wife were driving back from  a visit to Nossa Senhora da Rocha when they saw a vende se (for sale) sign on the side of the road close to Porches village. They called the number on the sign and were able to speak in German to Marilia, the younger daughter of  the owner of the land, Artur Bravo. As the owner of vineyards and two wineries, he was one of the few people in the area who had a phone.

The next day the Dutch-German couple looked closely at the property for sale, loved it and decided to buy. It was the beginning of a long and close association with Porches for Paul and Eva Schelfhout.

The Schelfhouts built half of their house on their Porches property in 1968, the other half in 1971 when they came to live permanently. In October 1972, they opened a school with 12 mostly British pupils in guest rooms in their home. This was the beginning of an independent institution that six months later moved into a nearby purpose-built premises as the International School of the Algarve. It grew to become the region’s largest private secondary school, with nearly 1,000 pupils aged between three and eighteen in separate English and Portuguese-speaking sections.

Another foreign couple who founded an enterprise in the 1960s that was to leave a lasting impression on the Porches community were Patrick and Oonagh Swift from Ireland. They remarked that when they first came to live in the Algarve in 1962, the way of life did not seem to have changed much since medieval times. Swift, then in his mid-thirties, was already a respected painter and literary figure in Ireland and London.

His Algarve canvasses reflected in a most distinctive personal way his love of the natural beauty of the local countryside.

Swift’s friendship with the Portuguese artist Lima de Freitas led to both a deeper understanding of Portuguese history and culture, and a passion for resurrecting the ceramic art tradition that had existed in the region in medieval and even ancient times. Swift and de Freitas opened their first joint studio in 1968 in a cottage on the edge of the village of Porches. It is known as the Olaria Pequena.

With demand for their work growing, Swift and de Freitas moved into a larger studio, which they called the Olaria Algarve – Porches Pottery. There they trained local artisans and continued to hand-paint old designs and motifs on ceramic plates and panels that soon became collectors’ items. The pottery is still today under the direction of two of Patrick and Oonagh Swifts’ daughters.

Chapter 9 - MODERN TIMES

The ‘Carnation Revolution’ of 25th April 1974 was so called because carnations placed in the rifle barrels of soldiers on the streets of Lisbon signified that the coup d’état had been almost devoid of violence. It was, however, a major turning point in Portuguese history because it immediately transformed the country from a dictatorship to a democracy. Its outward impact was greatest in the cities but it was still of huge social, economic and political significance even in small towns, villages and rural areas.

During the decade before 1974, the country was still relatively underdeveloped with poor infrastructures and inefficient agriculture, but growth rates for GDP were among the highest in Europe. By 1973, the on-going colonial wars were exacting a heavy toll in terms of financial cost and in promoting mass emigration among the better educated and most technically skilled who wanted to avoid conscription. People all across the country were restive and hungry for change.

The revolution was not an instant panacea for the country’s ills. The nationalisation of banks and industries and the expropriation of agricultural estates led to collapse across all sectors of the economy. The country’s growth rate went from the highest to the lowest in Western Europe. Communists and other left-wing groups vied for power with right-wing political forces as conscripted soldiers and Portuguese expatriates poured back home with the end of military action leading to decolonisation in the African territories.

The climate of political turmoil and social uncertainty, caused tourism to falter in Porches and everywhere else in the country. Because of its economic importance, it was not long before it was back on track and growing again. The Hotel Garbe had doubled in size. The four-star Hotel Viking, located on the clifftop overlooking the beach next to the Senhora da Rocha headland became the first hotel to open within the Porches parish. The Vila Nossa Senhora da Rocha apartment and bungalow complex opened 100 metres from the famous headland.

The 1980s saw a return to economic and social stability, especially after Portugal became a member of the European Union. Trade ties increased; structural and cohesion funds flowed in; tourism was on the march as the main economic activity in the south of the country. Two Rosamar aparthotels and the Aparthotel Algar opened in Armação de Pêra. The more modest Albergaria D. Manuel on the road between Porches village and Armação de Pêra added a further option for travellers and tourists. More holiday facilities were added in the 1990s, most notably the Vila Vita Parc Resort & Spa in 1992 and the Vila Galé Náutico hotel at the western entrance to Armação de Pêra in 1995.

 Amid the hotels, aparthotels and resorts, and spurred on by the ease of obtaining bank loans, a great many private apartments were built in the 1980s and 1990s. Because planning permission and property taxes were the best way to generate revenue for municipalities, the town halls in both Lagoa and Silves authorised the construction of far more apartment blocks than the areas realistically needed. The resulting over-development massively changed the appearance of the coastal section of the parish of Porches. The change to the skyline was even more dramatic in Armação de Pêra where some of the apartment blocks soared to 20 floors. Most of these apartments were sold to Portuguese as holiday homes for personal use or for rental in the summer months. Many remained unoccupied and shuttered out of the high holiday season – and still do.

Further back from the coast and closer to the village of Porches, more apartments as well as complexes of terraced houses and individual villas of various sizes were built. These were mainly for residential rather than holiday use and they attracted buyers from outside the parish.

By the dawn of the 21st century, the building boom, in tandem with the dereliction of almost every farm property in the area, had resulted in an extraordinary mix of urban mass and rural emptiness. Tangled undergrowth had taken over in dry riverbeds. Rows of old stonewalls on hillsides still hinted of medieval terracing but the fields were devoid of crops. By contrast, the Moorish-style architecture of Vila Vita Parc encompassed sumptuous rooms, suites and villas set in sub-tropical gardens next to a secluded sandy beach and rocky cliffs with unrestricted views over the sea to the horizon. As a part of the New York-based Leading Hotels of the World consortium since its opening, the resort has been honoured with many international awards, including a Michelin Star on for its signature Ocean restaurant in 2009 and again in 2011.

The Hotel Garbe joined the international Holiday Inn chain. The Viking was taken over by Portugal’s largest hotel and resort chain, the Pestana Group. The group also owns the Pestana Porches Praia apartments next door. Vila Vita continued to develop its image of “timeless elegance” while the Vilalara complex specialising in Thalassa health treatments remained wholehearted “dedicated to well-being and the senses.” 

Pestana Viking

Holiday Inn

Vila Vita Parc´

Vilalara