Castelo Novo

Clinging to the eastern slope of the Serra da Gardunha, at around 650 metres above sea level, Castelo Novo is one of the most intact granite villages in the Beira Baixa. It belongs to the municipality of Fundão, in the district of Castelo Branco, and unfolds in narrow, labyrinthine streets that climb towards the ruins of the castle, shaped by the rock outcrop that serves both as the foundation and as the raw material of the houses. Here the schist of the mountains gives way to granite, and it is from this stone that the chromatic coherence distinguishing the settlement arises.

From medieval foundation to Manueline charter

The history of Castelo Novo is bound up with the military settlement of the inland frontier in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The place name is first mentioned in 1208, in the will of Guterres, who granted to the Order of the Temple the “land called Castelo Novo”. The village inherited a charter granted in 1202 by King Sancho I to an earlier place — Alpreada — whose location and name shifted shortly afterwards to the present fortified site. The castle was probably built between 1205 and 1208, replacing an older structure, and passed into the Templar sphere and, later, to the Order of Christ.

During the reign of King Dinis the fortification was reinforced, a hypothesis supported by the parapets and merlons of Dionisine character still visible along a stretch of the wall. In 1510, King Manuel I granted a new charter, signed in Santarém, which renewed the municipal privileges. Castelo Novo retained the status of municipal seat until the nineteenth century, when it was abolished and, in 1855, incorporated into Fundão.

The ensemble of the municipal square brings together in a single space three periods of Portuguese history: the late Gothic of the pillory, the administrative classicism of the Town Hall and Gaol, and the Baroque of the royal fountains.

The municipal square and the fountains

The monumental heart of the village is the square presided over by the Manueline pillory, symbol of municipal autonomy, and by the Town Hall and Gaol, a building that housed the municipal power and the prison. Beside it run two remarkable fountains that illustrate the continuity of civic life around water. The Chafariz d’El-Rei, also known as the Chafariz Fundeiro, is a medieval work bearing the arms of King Dinis; the Baroque Bica fountain displays the coat of arms of King João V. Alongside these, granite fountains such as the Fonte da Vila supplied the population for centuries, combining function and ornament.

The Mother Church, of medieval origin, was remodelled in the eighteenth century, acquiring a Baroque character, while Manueline windows and doorways scattered among the houses bear witness to sixteenth-century prosperity.

A historic village of the Serra da Gardunha

Castelo Novo belongs to the Historic Villages of Portugal network, a programme that rehabilitated twelve settlements of the Beira for their architecture and defensive memory. It stands apart from its neighbours of granite and frontier such as Monsanto, crowned by its castle, Sortelha, with its complete wall, or Linhares da Beira, in the way its houses embrace the slope of the Gardunha rather than crowning an isolated hilltop.

Today, with little more than three hundred inhabitants in the parish, Castelo Novo preserves a domestic scale that few classified places retain. It forms part of the heritage ensemble of the Centro region, where granite, the water of the royal fountains and the shadow of the castle continue to structure the daily life of a village that has crossed eight centuries without losing its design.