Igreja Paroquial de Nossa Senhora da Purificação

This rectangular church stands in a splendid natural setting in a small walled churchyard with a three-storey bell tower on the left elevation. Above the entrance, a triangular pediment with a tympanum bearing an epigraphic cartouche topped by an undulating plant decoration bears the date 1744 and the name Alexandre Barbosa, possibly a benefactor of the improvement works. The pediment, flanked by two windows, is surmounted by a niche with a shell dome that houses the image of the patron saint - Our Lady of Purification - in ançã stone from the 17th-17th centuries. The niche is decorated with lateral volutes and topped by a scallop, while the sub-quadrangular mullioned windows with globular pendant frames display curved pediments composed of foliage and volutes, with a central globular finial. The façade culminates in a curved, raised pediment with a depressed arch, flanked by pinnacles with pine cone finials and crowned by a cross with pyramidal tops - all similar to the angles of the crossing arch and the rear façade. The bell tower, ornamented in the middle with a sub-hexagonal carteia of plant motifs, shows that it was built in 1774, when Manuel Magalhães was abbot. Inside, the chancel is dominated by a Baroque carved high altar from the late 18th century, where the festoons and floral garlands, scallops and other decoration characteristic of the time are revealed, giving dynamism to the whole. The exquisite ornamentation is underlined by marbled paintings in beige, pink and blue and two polychrome angels flanking the upper pelmet. The chancel ceiling was painted in the 20th century with depictions of the Tetramorph, while the nave ceiling is covered with simple coffered ceilings. The nave's relief goes to the left side altar, a 17th-century piece from the Italian Renaissance. On the opposite side, a baroque altar of Our Lady of the Rosary, somewhat simple but elegant, with depictions of seraphim, is painted in shades of beige, blue, red and sepia. Next to the corbel on the right side of the choir - relatively recent - an epigraph informs that the church was built in 1647 by Fr. Manuel Ribeiro and his heirs. A pulpit with a granite base, a balcony and a polychrome wooden pelmet in blue, red, green and grey, protrudes from the left wall of the nave; in the chancel there is a Joanine armchair in good condition. The temple's images add value to its heritage: on the high altar there is an image of Saint Gonçalo and another of Our Lady of Purification, both from the 18th century; in the nave there is an 18th-century image of Our Lady of the Rosary, one of Saint Sebastian and another of Saint Inês.