CAMPO MAIOR
N 39º 01' 12''; W 7º 04' 12''
The war with Castile from 1640 will produce the first major transformations. The need to fortify the village that during the past three centuries had developed sharply outside the medieval fence, the urgency to build a new walled belt to defend the residents of the new village against attacks by the Castilian armies, will compel the king to send large amounts in cash, military engineers, skilled workers and employ a large contingent of unskilled personnel. The military contingents are then numerous. It is estimated that in the second half of the 17th century, for every four people living in the village, a military era. Campo Maior was, for some time, the main headquarters of the Dutch mercenary troops deployed to Alentejo. At that time the village became the most important military center in Alentejo, after Elvas.
In 1712, the Castle of Campo Maior was surrounded by a large Spanish army commanded by the Marquis de Bay, who for 36 days dropped tons of bombs and shrapnel on the village, having managed to open a breach in one of the ramparts; the invader, intending to enter there, suffered heavy casualties that forced him to lift the siege.
On September 16, 1732, at three in the morning, a violent thunderstorm broke out, the magazine, containing 6000 arrobas of gunpowder and 5000 ammunition, located in the big tower of the castle and struck by lightning, immediately triggering a violent explosion and a fire that dragged with it about two-thirds of the population.
D. João V determines the rapid reconstruction of the castle. The village will slowly rise from the ruins and gradually rebuild itself to return to occupy the first place in times of war and place of trade and peaceful relations with the neighboring peoples of Spain, in times of peace.
THE BONE CHAPEL
It is the second-largest chapel of bones in the country, after Évora, the largest chapel of bones, in the Church of São Francisco.
It was built in 1766 after the explosion in a magazine that killed more than two-thirds of the population in 1732.
The interior of the building was built using the bones of the victims of that tragedy. The floor is from the 20th century.
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OUGUELA
N 39º 04' 44''; W 7º 01' 54''
The town is located 10 km northwest of Campo Maior, on a hill on the right bank of the Gévora River, and is 14 km (in a straight line) from the Spanish municipality of Villar del Rey, in the province of Badajoz.
The castle of Ouguela had a great military importance, due to its strategic location, close to the border, and dominating the roads coming from Spain. Commanded to build at the beginning of the 14th century and equipped with a bastioned defensive system in the middle of the 17th century, it was surrounded or occupied by Castilian or Spanish troops during the crisis of 1383-1385, the War of the Spanish Succession (1475), the War of Restoration Portuguese (in 1642 and again in 1662), the War of the Spanish Succession (1709), the Spanish invasion of Portugal in 1762, and the War of the Oranges (1801). In this short war, Ouguela, like Campo Maior itself, were conquered by Spain, but were restored to Portugal by the Treaty of Badajoz.
