An arresting fact about a life that ended a short walk from this point.
Last reviewed 16 September 2026 · A three-minute read · 800 BC–1974
The short answer
50 Alameda da Fonte Velha stands near Linhó, Sintra, where South African poet Roy Campbell spent his final year before his death in 1957. The address also lies close to the Fonte Velha Iron Age and Roman necropolis, where seventeen Iron Age and sixteen Roman graves were excavated, the latter in 1984.
Convento Irmãs Doroteias - Comunidade Nª. Srª. da Conceição (Linhó) — 2002 · János Korom Dr. 14 Million views from Wien, Austria · CC BY-SA 2.0
1956 to 1957
A South African poet settled in Linhó to die
Roy Campbell came to Linhó in 1956 looking for a place to settle. He was a South African poet, already in his fifties, known for a hard, combative style and a life spent moving between countries. He had fought in Spain, lived in France, and clashed publicly with other writers of his generation. Linhó, a quiet village above Lisbon, was one more stop, though nobody living there then could have known it would be his last.
He died the following year, in 1957. His body did not travel far. He was buried at two kilometers, the same graveyard that holds the Scottish cartographer John George Bartholomew and the Portuguese architect Raul Lino. Campbell's wife, Mary Garman, was later buried there too, more than twenty years after him.
The house Campbell lived in has not survived as a landmark the way the older buildings nearby have. But the ground under Linhó was already used to holding the newly arrived and the newly dead. A thousand paces from where Campbell settled, excavators found a much older cemetery. It was the Fonte Velha - Roman Iron Age necropolis. People were cremated and buried there with glass vessels and bracelets. This happened from the Iron Age through the fourth century AD. Nobody connects the two burial grounds directly. But the village had been receiving the dead for centuries. This happened long before a poet from South Africa came to spend his last year among them.
A poet who had fought across three countries spent his last year in one Sintra village and never left it.
1958 to 1968
A disgraced official rebuilt his career from Linhó
Marcelo Caetano had already lost his standing in the Estado Novo regime when he began spending summers in Linhó. He was a former Rector of the University of Lisbon. The government had pushed him out of favor. Starting in 1958, he used his Linhó house to host quiet meetings. He was rebuilding a political career from a village that asked no questions. The plan worked. Ten years later, in 1968, Marcelo Caetano became the 101st Prime Minister of Portugal. He was the last man to hold the office before the regime fell. A street in Linhó still carries his name, though there have been attempts to change it.
Campbell and Caetano were not the only strangers this ground had to take in.
1956 to 1998
A school for engineers' children grew into an institution
In 1956, the same year Campbell arrived in Linhó, a different kind of newcomer showed up nearby. American engineers were building the Salazar Bridge over the Tagus. They needed somewhere to send their children to school. An Irish professor named Anthony A. McKenna opened St. Columban's School to teach them. The children could slot back into American classrooms when their families moved on. The school outgrew its first home. It eventually settled on a purpose-built campus in Linhó. Hillary Clinton opened it in 1998. She was then First Lady of the United States. In 2001 it took a new name: the Carlucci American International School of Lisbon. It was named after Frank Carlucci. He was the US ambassador who steered relations with Portugal through the 1974 Carnation Revolution. It remains the only school in the country backed by the US State Department.
800 BC to 400 AD
Iron Age and Roman graves held cremated dead
Long before any of them arrived, the ground near Linhó was already a resting place for outsiders of a different kind. Estácio da Veiga dug the Fonte Velha necropolis. Santos Rocha dug it again in 1984. They found seventeen Iron Age graves and sixteen Roman burials. The Roman dead spanned the 1st to 4th centuries AD. Bodies were cremated. Then they were buried with glass vessels, bracelets, rings and small containers of perfume called unguentaria. Coins went in with the ashes.
Seventeen Iron Age graves and sixteen Roman ones held bodies laid to rest a thousand years before Sintra had a name.
1999
A resort hosted a closed-door gathering of leaders
By the late twentieth century, Linhó had become a place the powerful chose deliberately, and quietly. In 1999 the Ritz-Carlton Penha Longa Resort hosted a meeting of the Bilderberg Group. It was built inside the Quinta da Penha Longa estate. The Bilderberg Group is an annual, closed-door gathering of political and business leaders from Europe and North America. No agenda was published and no minutes were released. This kept with the group's practice everywhere it meets. The village that had sheltered a dying poet and a plotting politician now sheltered men who wanted simply not to be seen at all.
The cemetery at São Pedro de Penaferrim still holds Roy Campbell's grave among the quiet lanes of a village that has spent centuries taking people in.
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Ancient
Iron Age to 4th century AD
Excavators found 17 Iron Age graves here, part of a burial ground later expanded with Roman-era graves, right around the address at Alameda da Fonte Velha.
In 1984, archaeologist Santos Rocha uncovered 16 more graves dating from the 1st to 4th centuries AD, with cremated remains buried alongside glass vessels, bracelets, rings and coins.
Portuguese architect Raul Lino and British cartographer John George Bartholomew, founder of the Edinburgh Geographical Institute, are both buried at São Pedro de Penaferrim Cemetery.
What happened at 50 Alameda da Fonte Velha before it was a poet's home?
Near this address lay the Fonte Velha necropolis, where excavators found seventeen Iron Age graves and, in 1984, sixteen more Roman-era graves dating from the 1st to 4th centuries AD, with cremated remains buried alongside glass vessels, bracelets, rings and coins.
Who died near this address in Linhó?
The South African poet Roy Campbell spent his final year in Linhó from 1956 and died there in 1957, though he was buried two kilometres away at São Pedro de Penaferrim Cemetery.
Where was Roy Campbell buried?
Roy Campbell was buried at São Pedro de Penaferrim Cemetery, the same graveyard holding cartographer John George Bartholomew and architect Raul Lino; his wife Mary Garman was buried there more than twenty years later.
What connects Marcelo Caetano to Linhó?
Marcelo Caetano, a former Rector of the University of Lisbon who had fallen from favour in the Estado Novo regime, began spending summers in Linhó from 1958, hosting quiet meetings there before becoming Portugal's 101st Prime Minister in 1968.
What is the Carlucci American International School's connection to Linhó?
The school was founded in 1956 in Linhó to teach the children of American engineers building the Salazar Bridge, later moved to a purpose-built campus opened by Hillary Clinton in 1998, and was renamed in 2001 after US ambassador Frank Carlucci.
What happened at the Ritz-Carlton Penha Longa Resort in 1999?
In 1999 the resort, built inside the Quinta da Penha Longa estate, hosted a closed-door meeting of the Bilderberg Group, an annual gathering of political and business leaders from Europe and North America for which no agenda or minutes were published.
