Castanheiro (Rua do)

It connects Largo do Colegio with Rua de S. Pedro and Rua das Mercês. Its name comes from the fact that in more remote times there was a gigantic chestnut tree at the northern end of the street, which was still a narrow and winding alley 70 years ago. It seems that it was once called João Castanheiro. It was at the initiative and insistence of the civil governor José Silvestre Ribeiro that the Municipal Council had it widened and gave it the alignment it currently maintains, with the central government, by decree of January 10, 1847, authorizing the necessary land for the same widening to be ceded from the former Jesuit college, which then, as now, served as a barracks. After this improvement, the current entrance and gate of the barracks were built, which was previously on Rua dos Ferreiros, approximately where the old high school was once located. In this street is the characteristic house called D. Guiomar, now notably modified, which once served as a military barracks. It was also in a building on this street that the Hospicio da Princesa D. Maria Amelia was provisionally installed in 1853.