Tower Of The Old Prison

Classified as Real Estate of Public Interest, as well as the stretch of wall that unites them, the Tower of the Old Prison and St. Paul’s Tower (which has also already had the name of Tower of Expectation) are the most notorious proof of what is left from the old wall of Ponte de Lima which, besides the walled structure, was composed of towers and doors, a set built in the Kingdom of D. Pedro I, in the century XIV. According to the epigraph that documents the work, written in gothic characters, placed in prominence near by the Church of St. António of the Old Tower, where once the Old Tower was erected, the stone breaking started on 8 March and its foundation was started on 6 July 1359.

The Tower of the Old Prison, adapted to prison in the century XVI (King D. Manuel I), presently houses the Tourism Office and receives temporary exhibitions. A mindful visitor, in a walk through the historical urban area, will find traces of the towers and the walls and the corresponding marks, placed in the pavement, evoking the vanished monumental structure.