Silves Castle

The Moorish castle of Silves was the best restored and presented castle we saw on our visit to Portugal and is still an imposing sight. It sits on a hilltop overlooking the (now silted) river below and has pretty gardens inside and also a cafe!

My Experience

Our visit to Silves was as part of a ten day road trip through southern Portugal and this was castle number 9 of the 11 we saw, detailed in my blog here. During the Muslim period, Silves was the most important city of the Algarve. It was finally captured by the Portugese in the thirteenth century after a 40 day siege after being bounced back and forth between Muslim and Christian hands for a hundred years. As the river silted up it declined in importance but the castle was restored in the 1940’s and is now an important tourist destination.

We parked on a side street a little way away and walked up the hill to the castle, past the faded cathedral built on the site of the mosque. Entrance with the museum was about €7 and we walked out of the gates into the courtyard. The centre of the castle is now a mix of garden and archeological dig although the gardens are a bit neglected after the tourism decline due to Covid. The castle is also really just the outer walls and some towers, there is no keep or internal buildings there but the extensive renovations in the 1940’s mean that you get some idea of the strength of the place as you walk the walls.

We walked a full circuit of the walls and then had a drink in the cafe before looking at the gardens. One of the towers had an exhibition of castle photography which I obviously loved! The cisterns, in use as the towns water source until the 1990’s, are now an exhibition of the decline of the Iberian Lynx and the work being done to protect and reintroduce it.

After our visit we then left the castle and walked down to the Silves Archeological Museum which was well laid out with a comprehensive history of the area and finds from various excavations. These included a Moorish well 20m deep with a staircase spiraling down the outside to allow access to the water.

Silves Castle Photo Gallery

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History

Silves Castle was probably built, on the site of late Roman or Visigothic fortifications from the 4th/5th centuries, during the Moorish occupation, which started around 715, and was part of the city walls that surrounded the town. To the Moors this town, which they called Xelb, was their regional capital. It is situated near the, now silted up, Arade river.

In 1060 the castle was taken by Fernando I, King of Leon and Castile. Shortly after it was retaken by the Moors. In 1189 Portuguese Christian forces, aided by thousands of English, German and Flemish Crusaders on their way to the Holy Land, attacked the town. They razed everything outside the town walls and lay siege to the castle. After six weeks the Moors surrendered after an agreement was made with the Portuguese King Sancho I that they could leave unharmed taking their belongings with them. But when they left the mercenary Crusaders violated that agreement; they slaughtered them all and pillaged the town.

Trying to recapture the town in 1190, Yacub Ben Yussuf attacked the castle in vain, only to return in 1191 with more success. During the 1190 siege England’s Richard the Lionheart helped the Christian forces to defend the town.

In 1198 the town was again retaken by Sancho I, again with help of German Crusaders. But being unable to keep the castle he dismantled it. Finally, in 1242, Silves was conquered by the Master of the Order of Santiago; Don Paio Peres Correia, during the reign of Alfonso III, who ordered its reconstruction. It’s this king’s statue standing just outside of the castle gate. After this the town importance gradually declined.

In 1722 and 1755 two heavy earthquakes also damaged the castle. In 1940 the castle was restored.

The castle was built out of large, red sandstone blocks and taipa; a Moorish mixture of mud and sandstone that hardens out like stone. It is equipped with eleven square towers, two of which are barbicans joined to the ramparts by a supporting arch that holds up the walk way. Its, up to 4 meter, thick walls enclose an area of ca. 125×100 meters.

There were two entrances to the castle grounds; the main gate defended by two towers and a so-called ‘traitors-gate’. This was situated close to a projecting tower which served as a keep, in the northern wall, but was bricked up during one of the restorations. Four of the towers which were modified at the time of reconstruction work carried out in the 14th/15th century, have gothic doorways, vaulted halls and stones bearing the marks of medieval masons.

Inside the castle nothing remains of the buildings that must have been there but partially excavated foundations. Two cisterns do remain; a small one, 60 meters deep and of Roman origin, and a larger one. The larger one is called ‘El Moura Encantada’, after a legend that says you can hear a moorish princess mourning her beloved at this well where he committed suicide.

References

There is a nice guide to the castle on the Portugal visitor site here.

The history above is copied from the castles.nl site here.