The Fort of Santo António de Belixe (Fort of Saint Anthony of Beliche), which is also referred to as the Fortress of Beliche ( pt, Fortaleza de Belixe), is located on

Cape St. Vincent Cape St. Vincent ( pt, Cabo de São Vicente, ) is a headland in the municipality of Vila do Bispo, in the Algarve, southern Portugal. It is the southwesternmost point of Portugal and of mainland Europe. History Cape St. Vincent was already sacr ...

in the parish of Sagres, municipality of

Vila do Bispo Vila do Bispo () is a municipality (''concelho'') in the Portuguese Algarve. It has 5,717 inhabitants in an area of 179.06 km2. History The first references to this region referred to the ''Aldeia do Bispo'' in the 14th century, in a char ...

Faro District Faro District ( pt, Distrito de Faro ) is the southernmost district of Portugal, coincident with the Algarve region. The administrative centre, or district capital, is the city of Faro. Municipalities The district is composed of 16 municipalit ...

, in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. The original date of construction is unknown but the fort was already in existence in the 16th Century.

History

Situated on the top of the cliff that, at an altitude of 86 metres, dominates the Bay of Beliche (or Belixe), the fort certainly already existed in the 16th Century as it contains the Coat of Arms of King Sebastian (1554-1578). Because of its strategic position at the southwest tip of Portugal it has been assumed that the site had been used for military purposes since ancient times, although there is no archaeological evidence to that effect. One theory is that the fort was built by order of King Manuel I (1469-1521), who lived at the nearby Cape St. Vincent at the beginning of the 16th Century. The fortress follows a structure common to the military architecture of the time, with a star-shaped polygonal plan, with batteries facing the sea. A long staircase gives access to the beach. Within the grounds of the fort is a small chapel, which was originally dedicated to Saint Catherine but is now dedicated to Saint Anthony. In 1578, the English sea captain

Francis Drake Sir Francis Drake ( – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer, and politician. Drake is best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580 (t ...

, regarded as a

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...

by the Portuguese, attacked the fort and caused serious damage, leading to significant reconstruction work under the instructions of

Philip III of Portugal Philip IV ( es, Felipe, pt, Filipe; 8 April 160517 September 1665), also called the Planet King (Spanish: ''Rey Planeta''), was King of Spain from 1621 to his death and (as Philip III) King of Portugal from 1621 to 1640. Philip is remembered f ...

, which was not completed until 1632. This remains the basis of the existing structure, despite it having been significantly damaged by the 1755 earthquake. FortalezaBeliche Chapel

Around 1960 the fort was adapted to be used as a tourist facility. At that time, important areas of the interior were also remodeled and some sections were rebuilt. Although well-integrated into the fort this new feature could do nothing to prevent the continued erosion of the cliff on which the fortress stands. For safety reasons the facility closed in the 1990s. Work to address the erosion problem is ongoing, with the involvement of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the

University of Algarve The University of Algarve (UAlg), founded in 1979, is a Portuguese public higher education institution located in the southernmost region of mainland Portugal, the Algarve, having its headquarters and two out of its three campuses in Faro (name ...

. Of particular concern is the Chapel. At the end of 1997 the

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

altarpiece was transferred to the Church of Nossa Senhora da Graça, in the nearby Fortress of Sagres. Ownership of the fort passed to the municipality of Vila do Bispo in 2012, for the sum of just €4000.

References

{{Bastion forts in Portugal, state=collapsed Belixe Castles in the Algarve Coastal fortifications in Portugal