Saint Peter's Cliff Ferns

São Pedro de Penaferrim (Saint Peter’s [take your pick] Crag Springs/ Cliff Ferns) is an ancient village just outside the historic town centre of Sintra, was, between 1154 and 2013, a parish of the municipality and was originally designated in medieval writings as São Pedro de Calaferrim, as well as between the baroque period and the 19th century, São Pedro de Canaferrim.

However, the origin and evolution of these designations is based merely on speculative hypotheses. According to the archivist-librarian João Martins da Silva Marques (1894 – 1978) in his Sintra – Historical Studies LVI, 1935, Calaferrim arose in the 13th century, while Canaferrim appears in 1748, with the writer Francisco Almeida Jordão. According to José Pedro Machado, philologist, writer and historian (1914 – 2005), in his Etymological Onomastic Dictionary of the Portuguese Language, 1981, the names mentioned above may come from Arabic origin; namely, “qala'â”, meaning a settlement located on a plateau or craggy rock and “ferrinu”, alluding to the abundance of ferns on the land, or the multiple natural springs located at various spots in and around the village.

The last transformation from Canaferrim to Penaferrim was due to the influence of the H.M. King-Consort Fernando II (1837-1853) when he purchased for the Crown the disused and ruined Convento da Nossa Senhora da Pena (Our Lady of the Crag Abbey [1501 – 1755]) in order to build the now globally famous Pena Palace, so enhancing the Pena name and location. “Pena” derives from the Latin “pinna”, which can mean battlement, or pinnacle; it is the old version of the contemporary “penha”, meaning cliff, crag and rockface. In the Portuguese-speaking world there are many place names derived from this designation where the local topography has such notable cliffs, rockfaces, etc.

The village and its environs are blessed with a plethora of notable historical, natural and architectural sites. The Parque da Pena (Pena Park), consisting of the previous private grounds of Pena Palace, has a unique collection of natural and architectural wealth – its exemplary vegetation, mostly planted in the romantic 19th-century, surrounds the palace on its 500m-high summit. Then, there is the Capela de São Lázaro (Saint Lazarus’ Chapel), built by H.M. Queen-Consort Leonor (1481 – 1495) in the 1480’s, as well as the Capela de Santa Eufémia (Saint Euphemia’s Chapel), where the parish’s May-Day festivities are still held at its separate 463m-high hilltop.

This was built in the 17th century on the site of chalcolithic vestiges, dating back to roughly 4000B.C. and attributable to the cult of moon-worship. On the natural front, there is Lagoa Azul (Blue Lagoon), whose existence is down to the weathering of the granite rocks of the Sintra hill range, creating sand and clays that coat and waterproof the bottom of the lake, preventing the rainwater that accumulates there from draining away. In the water, you will find, for example, ducks, turtles, freshwater mussels, carp and perch.

There were also freshwater jellyfish, crayfish and shrimp, but none of these species has been seen for some years. Out of the water, the most characteristic species are the long-tailed tit, the common tit, the wood pigeon, and sometimes even the Eurasian sparrow hawk, in addition to other more common birds that can be found. The lake also contains shoals of eastern mosquitofish (gambusia holbrooki), sun-perch (lepomis gibbosus) and the Portuguese boga (chondrostoma lusitanicum), as well as being a home to many frogs, making it easy to see tadpoles in the breeding season; there is also a population of European pond terrapins (emys orbicularis), an endangered species elsewhere.

The parish is further endowered with various historic and notable estates, such as:

(I)           Quinta do Ramalhão (Large Branch Estate – the estate was created with a royal charter granted by H.M. King Afonso V [1438 – 1481] in 1470 to Diogo Gomes de Cintra (Lagos, 1420 – Sintra, 1499), at the time overseer of the Crown properties in Sintra, but also a notable explorer, navigator and writer, and the palace was later built in 1709 by the wealthy trader and governor of the Portuguese enclave colony of Sacramento on the River Plate, Luís Garcia de Bivar [1685 – 1760] when he purchased the estate);

(II)          Quinta da Penha Verde (Green Cliff Estate – originally built in 1534 by Lord João de Castro [Lisbon, 1500 – Goa, 1548], cartographer, 13th governor and 4th viceroy of India and extended to in the 17th and 18th centuries);

(III)        Quinta Dom Dinis (King Denis Estate – built in the 19th century);

(IV)        Quinta da Fonte (Spring Estate), originally built in the 18th century, as part of the Barony of Linhó, but now with extensive 20th century extensions;

(V)         Quinta da Penha Longa (Long Cliff Estate) is a large estate which had a working monastery of the Order of Saint Jerome between 1355 and 1834.

With the dissolution of the religious orders in that latter year, the estate has changed hands seven times between Portuguese nobles and foreign corporations, currently being a luxury spa resort.

(VI)        on the ecclesiastic front, there is the uniquely beautiful parish church, naturally dedicated to Saint Peter;

The current building still has 14th century sections, but it was extensively built on and enriched right through from the 15th to 18th centuries.

Prior to its dissolution in the wake of the 2012 local government cost-cutting “rationalisations”, as Portuguese parishes go, it had a large geographical area (about 26km²) from São Pedro proper in the northwest, down to the village of Barrunchal in the southeast, already with half a foot cheekily in the neighbouring Cascais municipality. In the centre of São Pedro village there is a very large, undulating and tree-lined open square (Praça Dom Fernando II) where the major fortnightly (every second and fourth Sundays of each month) street market has been held since medieval times. At the 2011 census, the population was recorded as 14,001 spread over all the villages, the others being Abrunheira (Blackthorn), Chão de Meninos (Children's Ground), Linhó (old name for flax, previously cultivated here), Manique de Cima (Upper Manique – possibly from the Latin “mane hic”, or “stay here”, as there is a ruin of a Roman villa built on Neolithic remains), Ranholas (possibly from “ranhar”, which is the ground scratching caused by poultry, mainly chickens, historically bred in this area) and Vale de Flores (Flower Valley).

Other Notable Heritage Sites

Igreja da Penha Longa (Long Cliff Church, built 15th century)

Casa do Cipreste (Cypress House, built 1912)

Chalé da Condessa de Edla (Countess Edla’s Chalet – built 1864)

Castelo dos Mouros (Moors’ Castle – built 8th century on ruins of a Greco-Celtic temple to the moon from 308B.C. on yet another summit, this time 450m-high)