Discover Junceira

Junceira brings together a clearly dated local history, religious connections, and traces of water engineering. For planning your trip, the area can be explored through several themes: its founding as a vicariate of the Order of Christ, historic festival traditions, and structures along the Ribeira da Lousã. Junceira, Poço Redondo, and the wider area around the Carril project are each distinct points of reference.

A local history with clear dates

Junceira was founded as a vicariate of the Order of Christ on 9 February 1570. The Igreja Matriz de Junceira was rebuilt in 1820. These dates mark different historical points of reference: 1570 marks the founding of Junceira, while 1820 marks a specific event at the parish church. This allows you to distinguish an early institutional milestone from the later history of the building.

Religious sites and festival traditions

In Poço Redondo, a locality within the União de Freguesias Serra/Junceira, there is a hermitage dedicated to the Paraclete. Historical celebrations in honour of the Holy Spirit at this hermitage were organised by the parish priest. The Festa em Honra do Espírito Santo was celebrated in Junceira in the 18th and 19th centuries. The religious theme is therefore reflected in different local contexts: in the celebrations at the hermitage in Poço Redondo and in Junceira’s festival tradition.

The activities of the Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit of the parish of São Mateus are documented for the years 1744 to 1867. This period includes 1820, the year the Igreja Matriz was rebuilt. The overlap in dates offers another perspective on the area’s religious history: the brotherhood and the church building represent different, yet chronologically connected, aspects of religious life.

Water engineering and the Ponte Romana de Carril

In the wider area around Junceira, the Carril hydro-agricultural project includes a dam built on the Ribeira da Lousã. The project also extends into the União das Freguesias de Serra e Junceira. The three-arched Ponte Romana de Carril is a separate structure: it is located on the Ribeira da Lousã in the Freguesia Junceira and still provides a crossing to the opposite bank. Check local conditions before visiting. Its form and function make the bridge a tangible point of reference for the history of crossing the river.

The Roman-medieval dam at Chocapalhas (CNS No. 15961), which no longer exists, should be distinguished from these structures. It lay along the course of the Ribeira da Lousã, or Carril, and disappeared as a result of the construction of the Barragem do Carril, inaugurated in 2002. The bridge, the dam belonging to the Carril project, and the vanished structure at Chocapalhas are therefore distinct water-engineering points of reference, even though the names Carril and Ribeira da Lousã recur.

Another trace of history

The gold mine at Poço Redondo was worked in the 20th century and is now abandoned. The history of gold mining thus adds another layer to the area’s religious history and water engineering. The contrast between its former operation and its present abandoned state makes the mine a different historical point of reference from the Ponte Romana, which still provides a crossing between the riverbanks.

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