Fajã
Explains the Madeiran term fajã: fertile tracts formed by landslides, inland or along the coast, and a common place-name element.
In Madeira the name ‘Fajãs’ is given to certain tracts of land, of greater or lesser extent, formed by the collapse of ground lying further upslope, and generally making up soil of remarkable fertility. ‘Fajãs’ form both in the interior of the island, through landslides of earth detached from the mountain slopes, and all along the coast. Striking examples of the latter are a considerable part of the parish (freguesia) of Jardim do Mar, Lugar de Baixo, Fajã dos Padres, Fajã da Areia and others besides. The term ‘fajã’ (strip of flat land at the foot of a cliff) is generally used as a place-name element, and there are dozens of localities called Fajã de…
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Places mentioned · 05
- Fajã · Subject
Fajã is a Madeiran term for fertile tracts of land formed by landslides, found both inland and along the coast. The Elucidário notes that it is a common element in place-names.
- Fajã da Areia
São Vicente. Example of a coastal fajã.
Well-known coastal fajã and principal locality of São Vicente parish, with a beach and a small port. The port, about two kilometres from São Vicente, was preferred to the town's own landing place, though it is also listed as a poor port. An unsuccessful attempt at salt-making was made there.
- Fajã dos Padres
Ribeira Brava. Example of a coastal fajã.
Fajã dos Padres is a small coastal fajã beyond Cabo Girão in the parish of Campanário, one of the best-known fajãs of Madeira. It was a Jesuit estate famed for the island's best Malmsey and also for Sercial; its Jesuit chapel was destroyed by Algerian corsairs in 1626. The Elucidário gives the pirate raid as 1625 in one note and 1626 in another.
- Jardim do Mar
Calheta. Much of this parish is cited as a coastal fajã.
Jardim do Mar is a small parish on a coastal fajã on Madeira's south-west coast, in the municipality of Calheta, originally part of Paul do Mar parish; it grew from an eighteenth-century curacy into a parish in 1848. Its people built a Gothic-style church in 1906–1907, Malvasia is grown there, and divers in its waters catch slipper lobsters by hand.
- Lugar de Baixo
Ponta do Sol. Example of a coastal fajã.
Lugar de Baixo is a coastal fajã between Ponta do Sol and Tábua in the parish of Ponta do Sol, Madeira. It was greatly enlarged by a landslide from the Lombada in 1804 (the flood that enlarged it is also dated 1803). It has the Carvalhal house chapel, rebuilt in 1906, and a meteorological station set up in 1941, and Prince Luís landed and embarked there when the sea was too rough at the town quay.