Pilgrims’ houses
Original title: Romeiros (Casas de)
Pilgrims' shelters built at Monte, Santo António da Serra and Piedade on the Ponta de São Lourenço, with notes on their history.
We know that houses were built to shelter pilgrims in the following places: Monte, Santo António da Serra and Piedade (Ponta de São Lourenço).
The pilgrims’ house at Monte (‘hill’) already existed between 1780 and 1790, and at a council meeting on 31 May 1822 it was declared to belong to the property of the municipality (concelho). Despite this, the Council resolved at its meeting of 18 November 1846 to have a building put up beside the church of Monte, ‘as a shelter for travellers and to house the beasts’; we do not know whether this building was ever actually constructed.
The pilgrims’ house at Santo António da Serra was built in 1808 at the expense of several British subjects, and is now in ruins. Until 1832 it was run by English committees, in which the names of Penfold, Selby, Leacock, Taylor and Gordon appear.
Of the house intended to lodge the devout who went on pilgrimage to the chapel of Our Lady of Pity (Nossa Senhora da Piedade), in the parish (freguesia) of Caniçal (‘reed bed’), no trace remains today.
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 05-
The pilgrims' house at Monte already existed in this period.
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English residents paid for a pilgrims' house at Santo António da Serra, opposite the parish residence.
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The municipal council declared the pilgrims' house at Monte municipal property.
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English committees ceased administering the pilgrims' house at Santo António da Serra.
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The council resolved to build a shelter for travellers and beasts beside Monte church.
Place
Places mentioned · 07- Pilgrims’ houses · Subject
Machico
The Casas de Romeiros were pilgrims' shelters built at Monte, at Santo António da Serra and at Piedade on the Ponta de São Lourenço. The Elucidário gives notes on their history.
- Caniçal
Machico. Parish containing the Piedade chapel.
Isolated fishing parish at the eastern tip of Madeira, at the root of Ponta de São Lourenço. It originated as a Moniz entail and João Teixeira's hunting reserve and became a parish around 1561. It holds a Piedade feast with a boat procession and has a fort built after a pirate raid.
- Chapel of Our Lady of Pity
Machico. Pilgrimage chapel whose pilgrims' house has vanished.
Name recorded for more than one chapel: one built by Simão Acciaioly in the convent of São Francisco in Funchal, where he was buried; a small chapel on a hillock by the Piedade beach at Ponta de São Lourenço; and a demolished chapel that gave Rua da Igrejinha its name.
- Church of Monte
Funchal. The council resolved in 1846 to build a travellers' shelter beside it.
The Igreja do Monte is the church of Monte parish, Funchal, and its churchyard serves as a viewpoint. In 1846 the council resolved to build a travellers' shelter beside it.
- Monte
Funchal. Site of a pilgrims' house existing by 1780–90.
Parish of Nossa Senhora do Monte above Funchal, at about 600 m, where leafing occurs later than in Funchal. It contains the localities of Jardim Botânico, Igreja and Marmeleiros and the Quinta de Sant'Ana. The Elucidário notes its many plants, such as acacias and Sonchus fruticosus.
- Ponta de São Lourenço
Machico. Location of the Piedade chapel and its former pilgrims' house.
The Ponta de São Lourenço is the long, narrow eastern headland of Madeira in the parish of Caniçal, said to be named after the caravel São Lourenço, with a lighthouse on its islet. The Elucidário describes its geology, seasonal vegetation, islets, fossil calcareous bodies at Piedade, land snails and use as pasture. The steamer Forerunner sank there in 1884, and a submarine bank lies between it and the Desertas.
- Santo António da Serra
Machico. Site of a pilgrims' house built by English residents in 1808, now in ruins.
An upland parish on a plateau above Santa Cruz and Machico, divided between those two municipalities. The Elucidário covers its settlement, church and Protestant troubles, and the short-lived Aldeia da Rainha colony of Porto Santo settlers. It also records its quintas, its lagoon, Burnay's dairy factory and the exile of a bishop there.
People
People mentioned · 05-
Member of the English committees that ran the Santo António da Serra pilgrims' house until 1832.
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Member of the English committees that ran the Santo António da Serra pilgrims' house until 1832.
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Member of the English committees that ran the Santo António da Serra pilgrims' house until 1832.
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Member of the English committees that ran the Santo António da Serra pilgrims' house until 1832.
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Member of the English committees that ran the Santo António da Serra pilgrims' house until 1832.