Nossa Senhora da Estrela (chapel)

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And there, on another lombada (long ridge between valleys) belonging to the same daughter (Beatriz Gonçalves), on a high spot with a fine view of the sea and the land, the same captain (Zarco) traced with his own hand a church of Our Lady of the Star (Nossa Senhora da Estrela), and said that he would leave this church strongly commended to his children, because he had long wished to build it in a place of his liking.’ Such, as Gaspar Frutuoso describes it, is the origin of this chapel’s foundation. It was Diogo Cabral (see Cabral), husband of Dona Beatriz Gonçalves da Câmara, daughter of João Gonçalves Zarco, who fulfilled the discoverer’s wishes by having this chapel built; it was the head of the entailed estate (morgadio) he founded. Diogo Cabral died on 15 December 1486 and was buried in the chapel he had founded. When it was already in an advanced state of ruin, some decades ago, the tombstone covering Diogo Cabral’s mortal remains was moved to the parish cemetery and placed over an ordinary grave. On that occasion the epitaph and Cabral’s coats of arms were either scratched out of the slab, or else it was laid face down, hiding the inscription from visitors. The founder’s bones, however, remained among the rubble of the chapel, and today not even traces of those ruins can be found.

The parish was installed in the Estrela (‘star’) chapel, which was not small, when it was created, and remained there for a good many years. We have found somewhere that this chapel was built in 1479 and rebuilt in 1560 by Rui de Sousa, great-grandson of its founder Diogo Cabral.

From an old register of visitation orders (livro de provimentos) of the church of Our Lady of Calhau (Nossa Senhora do Calhau), which survived the flash flood (aluvião) of 1803, we know that in 1632 the chapel of Our Lady of the Star existed in that parish, though we do not know where it stood.