This point looks onto the Câmara Municipal de Sintra, a neo-Manueline building on the edge of the old town, still Sintra's working town hall.
Last reviewed 7 September 2026 · A two-minute read · 4000 BC–2011
The short answer
Câmara Municipal de Sintra is the town hall of Sintra, built between 1906 and 1909 by architect Arnaldo Redondo Adães Bermudes in the Neo-Manueline style, normally reserved for royal residences such as Pena Palace. It replaced the demolished medieval Chapel of São Sebastião and its burial ground, and was classified a Monument of Municipal Interest in 2011.
1906 to 1909
A town hall built over a demolished chapel's graveyard
The Câmara Municipal de Sintra is the town hall of Sintra, still running the municipality's affairs today. From this point, its towers and carved stonework stand out from the older streets around it, built to look like a small royal palace rather than a government office.
The architect was Arnaldo Redondo Adães Bermudes, a Lisbon-trained designer who also built Sintra's old district jail and worked on the restoration of Mafra, Queluz, and the Jerónimos Monastery. For this building, he chose the Neo-Manueline style, the stone pattern usually kept for royal residences like Pena Palace. It wrapped a modest civic building in the language of palaces and ships, tying the town council to Portugal's age of exploration.
The site had older roots that had to be cleared away first. The medieval Chapel of São Sebastião stood here, along with its burial ground. Workers demolished it to make space for the new town hall, and local people protested the loss of the chapel and its cemetery. Some of its remains survive built into the nearby Casal de São Roque house.
The building opened in 1909, timed to Sintra's Spring Festival, the same year the town's new district jail opened nearby. It has kept its original job ever since, as the seat of the municipal council. A decorative fountain outside, added in 1914 and designed by Tertuliano Lacerda Marques, still stands in front of the entrance.
In 2011, the town hall was classified a Monument of Municipal Interest. It was built to look like something much older and grander than a council office.
1906 to 1909
A cloister switches style between its two floors
Inside the finished building, a two-story cloister runs through the heart of it. The lower level follows the same Neo-Manueline style as the exterior. The upper level switches to Renaissance design, a deliberate contrast between the two floors.
1906 to 1948
The architect taught, governed, and died a freemason
Arnaldo Redondo Adães Bermudes kept working after the town hall opened. He taught at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts, served briefly as interim president of Lisbon's city council, and stayed active in Republican politics as a freemason. Bermudes died in 1948 at his estate in nearby Paiões, within the same municipality his town hall still governs.
1936 to 1939
A nearby palace lent its name to the Ship Room
A few years after the town hall opened, the council bought the nearby Palácio Valenças, in 1936. By 1939, it was serving as Sintra's municipal library and archive. A room inside the main town hall still carries the name Sala da Nau, the Ship Room, a nod to that earlier building and to Portugal's maritime past. The Municipal Assembly still meets there today.
2011 to now
Public meetings still fill the rooms Bermudes designed
The Monument of Municipal Interest listing in 2011 confirmed what the building had always claimed for itself: a place built to outlast its own paperwork. The council still runs the town from inside it, holding public meetings and civic ceremonies in the same rooms Bermudes designed over a century ago. The interior stays largely closed to casual visitors, but the exterior, the cloister, and the 1914 fountain by Tertuliano Lacerda Marques remain on open view at the edge of Sintra's old town.
The building still works as Sintra's town hall, wearing the stone pattern of a royal palace over an ordinary government office.
Read the ground you are standing on
Every person, building and event in this story opens into its own dig in the app — and Strata will dig the ground under your feet instead, wherever that is, in about a minute, with every source shown.
Sourced records, high and medium confidence. Era background is marked as such.
Prehistoric
Late Neolithic
A Neolithic dolmen excavated near Agualva, in Sintra, at the end of the 19th century held human bones from an early phase of megalithic burial practice in western Iberia.
Roman period (1st–2nd century AD); excavated 19th century
Nineteenth-century digging at Colaride, within Sintra, turned up Roman-era human remains, a gold ring and inscribed bronze items from tombs of the 1st–2nd centuries AD.
The Sintra municipal archive records that in 1157 or 1158, King Afonso Henriques donated houses and lands around Sintra, including dwellings near the royal palace, to the Master of the Templars, Gualdim Pais.
In 1585, thirty people were hanged in Sintra for following Sebastianism, a movement that believed King Sebastian would return from his death at the 1578 Battle of Alcácer Quibir.
The great Lisbon earthquake of 1 November 1755 badly damaged Sintra's town center and the monastery that later became Pena Palace, and killed people here.
The Paços do Concelho, built 1906–1909, replaced the medieval Chapel of São Sebastião, which was torn down for the new building despite local protest over disturbing its cemetery grounds.
Architect Arnaldo Redondo Adães Bermudes used the romantic Neo-Manueline style, normally reserved for royal residences like Pena Palace, for Sintra's new municipal building, finished in 1909.
The architect Raul Lino, the poet Roy Campbell and the cartographer John George Bartholomew are all buried at São Pedro de Penaferrim Cemetery, about two kilometers away.
What was here before the Câmara Municipal de Sintra?
The medieval Chapel of São Sebastião and its burial ground stood on the site before being demolished, despite local protest, to make way for the new town hall built between 1906 and 1909.
Who designed the Câmara Municipal de Sintra?
Arnaldo Redondo Adães Bermudes, a Lisbon-trained architect who also built Sintra's old district jail and worked on the restoration of Mafra, Queluz and the Jerónimos Monastery, designed the town hall in the Neo-Manueline style.
What happened to the remains of the chapel that once stood there?
Some remains of the demolished Chapel of São Sebastião survive built into the nearby Casal de São Roque house.
Why is the town hall built in a royal architectural style?
Bermudes chose the Neo-Manueline style, usually kept for royal residences like Pena Palace, to tie the civic building to Portugal's age of exploration rather than give it the plainer look of a government office.
Is the Sala da Nau inside the town hall open to the public?
The Sala da Nau, or Ship Room, is where Sintra's Municipal Assembly still meets, named after the nearby Palácio Valenças that the council bought in 1936 and turned into the municipal library and archive by 1939.
When was the Câmara Municipal de Sintra officially recognised as a heritage building?
The town hall was classified a Monument of Municipal Interest in 2011, a century after it replaced the chapel that had previously occupied the site.