Santa Clara

With evidence of occupation dating back to Prehistory, Ameixoeira grew on one of Lisbon’s higher points, along paths connecting the area with Lumiar and the city. After Lisbon was taken from the Moors, later records identified a settlement here as Muchinis; in the thirteenth century, documents refer to lands belonging to the church of Santa Marinha in a place called Moxoeira. The name changed over time, but the rural framework endured: estates, smallholdings, farms, plots and small settlements arranged around lanes and squares. Ameixoeira was part of the parish of Lumiar until it became a parish in its own right, dedicated to Nossa Senhora da Encarnação, in the mid-1530s. The church, founded before 1500, underwent successive alterations, including after the 1755 earthquake. Charneca also developed as an outlying rural settlement, shaped by estates and old paths. Its Igreja de São Bartolomeu, built in the seventeenth century on the site of an earlier church, retains older features and reflects that continuity. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, pleasure estates strengthened the presence of a countryside Lisbon close to the city. Quinta de Santa Clara dates from the late seventeenth century, while Quinta Alegre was built in the eighteenth. By the late nineteenth century, Forte da Ameixoeira formed part of the Campo Entrincheirado de Lisboa, the capital’s land-defence system. Twentieth-century urban growth transformed the area substantially, without entirely erasing its old paths, place names and historic centres. In 2012, the merger of the former parishes of Ameixoeira and Charneca created today’s civil parish of Santa Clara.

Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Encarnação, in the old centre of Ameixoeira, is associated with the oldest known parish record in the municipality of Lisbon, dating from 1540. It is a documentary link to sixteenth-century Lisbon, long before this landscape of estates and lanes became an established part of the city. Written records were already keeping pace here well before GPS, segments or running apps.

Núcleo Histórico da Ameixoeira · Rua Direita da Ameixoeira · Estrada da Ameixoeira · Largo do Ministro · Largo do Terreiro · Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Encarnação · Fonte da Torrinha · Quinta de Santa Clara · Parque Urbano do Vale da Ameixoeira · Forte da Ameixoeira · Núcleo Histórico da Charneca · Igreja de São Bartolomeu da Charneca · Largo dos Defensores da República · Quinta Alegre · Jardim da Quinta Alegre · Campo das Amoreiras · Galinheiras · Feira das Galinheiras

Follow Rua Direita da Ameixoeira and look for the scale and traces of the old rural centre. · Notice how Largo do Ministro, Largo do Terreiro and Largo da Igreja emerged where old paths met. · Pass Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Encarnação and recall the parish record of 1540. · Read the street names as clues: estates, wells, washerwomen and other traces of an agricultural past. · Explore the paths and green spaces of Quinta de Santa Clara, taking in the view over the Ameixoeira valley. · View Forte da Ameixoeira only from permitted public spaces. · Cross the cycle-and-pedestrian link over Calçada de Carriche and notice the connection between Vale da Ameixoeira, Quinta de Santa Clara and the Quinta dos Alcoutins area. · Compare the historic centres of Ameixoeira and Charneca: two rural tempos still present within the same civil parish. · At Igreja de São Bartolomeu da Charneca, look for the older features visible outside. · At the gate of Quinta Alegre, look for the initials “JBA” and the date 1819. · Pass through Galinheiras and recognise the link between today’s fair and earlier agricultural trade.