Paul da Serra

This plain, the only one of any real extent on Madeira, lies 1500 metres above sea level. It measures about 5 and a half kilometres from east to west, and its greatest width is a little over 3 kilometres. It forms part of the municipalities of Ribeira Brava, Ponta do Sol, Calheta and São Vicente, between which it is enclosed, and it is a desolate place, battered by storms for most of the year. Tree heath and bilberry are the only native shrubs that form thickets there; the rest of the vegetation consists of Pteridum aquilinum (bracken), Agrostis castellana, Hypericum linarifolium and Thymus caespititius (alecrim da serra). This last is extremely abundant here but hard to find in other regions.

The Paul da Serra (‘upland marsh’) can be put to use, as Thomas Edward Bowdich said in 1823, and the former Agricultural Board (Junta Agrícola) trialled the growing of wheat, potatoes (semilhas, the Madeiran word), turnips and carrots there with good results. If stands of trees are planted to shelter the ground from the winds, the region may yet come to produce in abundance many of the foodstuffs that people need.

At the locality (sítio) of Estanquinhos (‘little ponds’), at an altitude of 1450 metres, there is a house that shelters travellers. The mountain shelter known as Meio Paul, which the Englishman Roberto Page had built towards the end of the first quarter of the 19th century, disappeared long ago through the action of time. This latter house stood at Campo Grande (‘great field’), a spot almost entirely bare of vegetation and the most inhospitable part of the Paul da Serra plateau.

The Paul da Serra is much visited at sheep-shearing time. Serious disturbances sometimes break out there, generally caused by the copious drinking indulged in by the people who flock there to watch the shearing, which sometimes goes on for more than three days.

The Paul da Serra is said to be one of the few places in the Madeiran uplands still owned by the State.

It is ‘common land’ (logradouro comum), and the inhabitants of the surrounding parishes (freguesias) make much use of it, gathering firewood for fuel and, above all, grass and brushwood for fattening livestock and as raw material. It is a very inhospitable place and much exposed to storms. As stated above, this makes cultivating the land almost impossible, unless it were broadly protected by strong hedges of dense trees able to withstand the gales that frequently break out there. It serves as pasture for many flocks of sheep. All the surrounding parishes are linked to this plateau by roads, and on some of them, poor though they are, animal-drawn wheeled carts travel to carry the firewood, grass and brushwood.

The former Agricultural Board (Junta Agrícola) planned a road that would cross the Paul plateau along its greatest length, running from the Encumeada de São Vicente (‘São Vicente ridge pass’) to the landing place of the parish of Porto Moniz (‘Moniz’s harbour’), about 38 kilometres long. The sections of this road were to be: from the Encumeada (‘ridge pass’) to the locality of Lombo do Mouro (‘the Moor’s ridge’), a distance of 4,200 metres; from there to Pico da Urze (‘heather peak’), a stretch of 8,300 metres; a third section from Pico da Urze to Lamaceiros (Porto Moniz), 23 kilometres long; and the last from Lamaceiros to the seaport, measuring 3,000 metres. Work on the road began in 1914 at both ends, but only a few kilometres of it were built.