Jardim do Mar (parish)

Set amid the bare cliffs that make up part of the coastline of the parishes (freguesias) of Calheta (‘small cove’) and Paul lies the tiny parish of Jardim do Mar (‘garden by the sea’). The abrupt change from sheer slopes stripped of vegetation to a cheerful, green spot that leans picturesquely out over the ocean amply explains the name that the first settlers gave to this lugar (settlement ranking between a town and a parish). It is also said that various wild flowers grew there in abundance, wild roses foremost among them, and there is still today a locality (sítio) called Roseiras (‘rose bushes’), which seems to confirm the tradition.

In his brief description of the more important parishes and settlements on the south-west coast of this island, Gaspar Frutuoso refers to the localities of Jardim do Mar and Paul do Mar (‘marsh by the sea’), calling them simply Jardim and Paul. We do not know whether they were known by these names in the earliest days of colonisation, perhaps without the added designation ‘do Mar’ (‘of the Sea’) that they bear today and have long borne. Nor do we know whether the places called Paul da Serra (‘upland marsh’) and Jardim da Serra (‘upland garden’) received these names to distinguish them from those localities, the one pair being washed by the sea and the other lying in the interior of the island. It is perhaps impossible today to establish this.

Between the coasts of Calheta and Paul a projection of the shore stands out; it is called Ponta do Jardim (‘garden point’) and makes up a considerable part of this parish. The parish is also formed by a fajã (strip of flat land at the foot of a cliff), which broke away from the higher ground above it. There is no record of its formation, and it is conjectured that it already existed before the discovery.

Gaspar Frutuoso says: ‘Half a légua from here is a parish called Jardim, of forty households (fogos, literally ‘hearths’), with a church dedicated to Our Lady of Grace (Nossa Senhora da Graça). It also has a sugar mill (engenho), grain land and vineyards.’ The annotator of the Saudades corrects this information in the following words: ‘There is a manifest error in this account because, as the above-cited documents concerning the parishes of Estreito da Calheta (‘the narrows of Calheta’) and Jardim do Mar show, Our Lady of Grace was already then the patron saint of the former, and at the time when Gaspar Frutuoso himself wrote the Saudades (1590) the latter had not yet been established: the author was therefore referring to the former and not to the latter, as the local circumstances he mentions confirm.’

As the soil of Jardim do Mar is quite fertile, it may be presumed that its land was cleared among the earliest agricultural ventures, albeit by people whose permanent residence was in the neighbouring locality of Paul, to which Jardim originally belonged. It may also be presumed that its settled population dates from a fairly early period, even though the parish was created more recently; this is fully explained by the very small number of its inhabitants.

Among the earliest inhabitants of Jardim do Mar, Dr Rodrigues de Azevedo mentions Gonçalo Alves de Araújo, who came to Madeira from mainland Portugal at the end of the 15th century and held land there as a sesmaria (royal land grant to settlers on condition of cultivation); he was known as Gonçalo Alves do Jardim. The wealthiest sesmeiro (holder of a land grant, or sesmaria) here and in Paul do Mar, however, was Joanes de Couto Cardoso, whose first and second sons founded two entails (morgados) with their seats in Paul and in Jardim. Their representative today (1921) is Francisco João Vasconcelos de Couto Cardoso, a leading landowner in the latter of these parishes.

Jardim do Mar began as a curacy (curato) dependent on Prazeres (‘joys’) or on Paul – which of the two we have not been able to establish. It seems that it was first a daughter curacy of Prazeres and later of Paul do Mar, and that it was created in the second quarter of the 18th century. In the Índice Geral do Registo da Provedoria da Real Fazenda (general index of the register of the Royal Treasury Office (Provedoria da Real Fazenda)) we read on p. 132: ‘Royal decree (alvará) of the Lord King John V, of 15 November 1734, creating the curate of Jardim do Mar, with a salary of one and a half moios (dry measure of grain, 60 alqueires) of wheat and one and a half pipas (wine cask and measure, c. 400–500 litres) of wine, in view of the grave inconvenience suffered by the inhabitants of this lugar (settlement ranking between a town and a parish) in going to hear Mass in the parish (freguesia) of Prazeres or Paul, as a result of which they not only missed Mass but also died without the sacraments.’ And in the Memorias sobre a criação e augmento do Estado Eclesiástico na Ilha da Madeira we find the following further instrument cited: ‘Royal decree of the said Lord, of 12 March 1736, granting the respective salary of one and a half moios of wheat and one and a half pipas of wine to the said curate of Jardim do Mar, Father Manuel do Nascimento, with the certificate of the vicar of Prazeres that he fulfils his obligations.’

The curacy was created at the end of 1734, and religious services seem to have begun at the start of the following year with the appointment of the curate Manuel do Nascimento. There was a small chapel there, which served as the seat of the curacy. It was rebuilt in 1786, for on 9 December of that year permission was granted for it to be blessed. The petition requesting this permission was made by Francisco Manuel da Silva, curate of Jardim do Mar, and it states that ‘by order of Her Majesty.... the chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary (Nossa Senhora do Rosário), to which that curacy is attached, has been built anew, for it had fallen into ruin, with only the altar left standing, and all the walls of its nave have been built anew...’

It is probable that Jardim formed a settled estate (fazenda povoada) with a chantry (capela), as happened in so many other parts of Madeira, the estates and chantries having been the original nucleus and centre of future parishes.

The curate did not reside permanently in Jardim do Mar. A warrant (provisão) of the diocesan prelate dated 20 July 1809 ordered the priest holding that post to take up residence there, so that he could promptly attend to all the duties of his office. This was observed only after 1836, when the vicar capitular (administrator of the vacant diocese elected by the chapter) and governor of the diocese (governador do bispado, administering the see in the bishop's absence), by a warrant of 28 September of that year, released Jardim from its dependence on Paul do Mar. He was granting a petition addressed to him by the inhabitants, who by then numbered about 300. Only with the royal letter (carta régia) of 24 June 1848, however, was Jardim raised to the status of a parish, wholly independent, in its civil and religious life, of the neighbouring parish of Paul do Mar.

The old chapel served as the parish church until it was replaced by the present building, about which we shall transcribe the following passages from O Jornal of 28 May 1909:

“

On 3 May 1906 the then vicar of this parish (freguesia), the Revd Father César Martinho Fernandes, began demolishing the cramped, ancient and half-ruined little church of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to raise in its place an elegant, beautiful and artistic building for divine worship.

Hintze Ribeiro was then Minister of the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal), and the civil governor of Funchal was Councillor (conselheiro, honorary title of the royal council) José Ribeiro da Cunha. This official had promised a conto (one million réis) de réis to help rebuild the church; meanwhile, however, the ministry fell, the vow faltered, and Jardim do Mar no longer had a church. And no money at all!

It was a tiny settlement, with a mere 420 inhabitants that year. How, then, could a church be rebuilt without resources? It was a children’s dream or a visionary’s fancy... But it was neither dream nor fancy; very soon it became a reality.

The most heartfelt generosity and the most devoted dedication to religious worship led the people of this parish to achieve truly sublime feats of thrift! They set to work.

The parish priest, a shrewd and daring spirit, drew the plan of the new church, bought part of the land, contracted with builders, summoned his people, collected their contributions for the contracted works and set everything in motion.

Many of the parishioners, having no money to pay their contributions, borrowed it at interest, and some of them still owe it today.

The parish priest was not only the architect; he was also the builder, the master mason and the labourer: he directed all the work, measured, aligned, squared, mixed the lime and dropped the plumb line.

The women groaned and sweated under the weight of sacks of sand and loads of stone, which, like their husbands, fathers and sons, they carried up from the beach to the building site, all for the love of God! Our distinguished friend Mr Francisco João de Vasconcelos not only placed his chapel of Our Lady of Pity (Nossa Senhora da Piedade) at the disposal of the Revd parish priest for the celebration of divine services, but also gave land and large sums of money, and on a single day fed at his own expense ninety-odd men who, at his request, carried stone free of charge.

There were also others who, besides the contributions due from them, spontaneously gave further sums.

When the emigrants from this parish heard abroad of this enormous undertaking, they sent the precious fruit of their toil to be spent on this work of religious zeal.

And the combination of all these efforts and sacrifices soon raised from the ground a building constructed strictly according to the rules of the art, the only one in Madeira that displays the true, pure Gothic style.

In the building of this church three benefactors stood out and deserve to be singled out: the then parish priest, the Revd Father César Martinho Fernandes, Mr Francisco de Vasconcelos, and the people as a whole, whose names will be bound for ever to the history of this parish, and will remain alive and remembered for as long as the church stands, with its elegant and graceful bell tower smiling on future generations.

Jardim do Mar is rightly proud (1921) of having been the only settlement in the whole diocese to have built a parish church. Its chief pride, however, lies in the hope of future reward, for which so many feats of self-denial were accomplished.’

The new church was solemnly blessed by the diocesan prelate, Dom Manuel Agostinho Barreto, on 19 October 1907. The occasion was marked by various festivities of great splendour, attended by countless people from the surrounding parishes.

The Revd Father César Martinho Fernandes left this parish shortly afterwards, serving as a priest in other parishes and then going to North America, where he stayed for some years. On returning to his homeland he again became parish priest of the small parish of Jardim, and died there on 1 November 1920, aged only 42. He rests in the shadow of the church that he succeeded in raising through so much labour and toil, and it would be entirely just for the people of this parish to erect a modest mausoleum over the seven palmos of earth that cover his body.

The Diário da Madeira of 20 November 1920 published a short biography of this most worthy and well-loved priest, to whom this parish owes the most outstanding and notable services, which well deserve to be remembered.

Once the diocesan prelate had obliged the curates of Jardim do Mar to keep a fixed residence within the bounds of their curacy, priests did indeed live there more or less permanently in the period from 1837 to 1848, the year in which the parish was definitively created. They were Francisco José Nunes, João José Lucio Gonçalves, Manuel da Purificação, Manuel Joaquim de Sena, Francisco Gomes da Silva and Manuel Rodrigues Correia.

Beside the manor house of the Coutos Cardosos, holders of the entailed estates, stands the chapel of Our Lady of Pity, which served as the parish church while the new church was being built. We shall deal with it in the article devoted to chapels.

This parish is bounded by the parishes of Paul, Prazeres and Estreito da Calheta. It communicates with the first across a beach of large boulders, exposed to the danger of stones that crash violently down from the overhanging cliffs. The other two parishes are reached by mere apologies for roads, narrow tracks cut into sheer slopes, which in recent years have undergone major and much-needed repairs. The landing place and the path leading to Paul do Mar have also been properly repaired. All these improvements were due to the initiative and diligent efforts of Francisco João de Vasconcelos, who was a major landowner there and lived there almost all year round. The building of the new church is also largely owed to the same gentleman, as already mentioned, for he was Father Martinho Fernandes’s most powerful helper in raising it. João Francisco de Vasconcelos died in Lisbon on 13 April 1928. The patron saint of the parish church is Our Lady of the Rosary. The parish has an official mixed school, established in 1914.

Tristão Vaz Teixeira Bettencourt da Câmara, brother of José Bettencourt da Câmara, whom we have already dealt with in this Elucidário (see vol. I, p. 204), married a lady of the entailed house (casa vinculada) of the Coutos Cardosos mentioned above, and in 1896 was granted the title of Baron of Jardim do Mar. He was owner and editor of the Diário de Noticias of Funchal and died in this city on 20 October 1903. He was the uncle of Francisco João de Vasconcelos, of whom we spoke above.