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    "headline": "Portugal’s Berlengas fort sits on a sea-stack islet, built from monastery ruins to fight off pirates",
    "description": "Portugal's Fort of São João Baptista on the Berlengas islands was built from a monastery's ruins after pirates drove out the monks, and finished in 1678.",
    "datePublished": "2026-11-11T06:15:00+00:00",
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    "keywords": "Berlengas, Fort of São João Baptista, Peniche, Portugal",
    "articleBody": "Off the Atlantic coast of Portugal, a stone fort perches on a rocky islet joined to its island by a single arched causeway. It was built from the stones of a monastery that pirates had helped empty. The Fort of São João Baptista das Berlengas stands just off the southeast shore of Berlenga Grande, the largest island of the Berlengas archipelago, which lies 10 to 17 kilometers (6 to 11 miles) out to sea from the town of Peniche, about an hour’s drive north of Lisbon. British sailors once knew the islands as “the Burlings.” Monks first, then the guns Before the soldiers came the monks. In the early 1500s, Hieronymite friars set up the Monastery of the Misericórdia da Berlenga to help sailors and shipwreck survivors, and the island’s remoteness suited their life of silence and prayer, according to the fort’s history. The archipelago’s record dates the settlement to 1513, with backing from Queen Eleanor of Viseu. It did not last. Algerian, Moroccan, English and French pirates and privateers raided the community again and again, and storms often cut the island off from the mainland just when help was needed. Disease and short supplies finished the job, and the friars left. A fort made of a monastery The fort’s own story starts with a royal order. King Manuel I called for a fortress on Berlenga Grande in 1502, but real building began only in the mid-1600s, under King John IV, during Portugal’s war to break away from Spain. In 1651 João Rodrigues de Sá visited the island with a military engineer to set the plan, and the war council ordered the monastery ruins pulled down and their stone reused for the walls. Even half-built, it was busy. By 1655 it had already held off an assault by three Barbary Coast pirate ships. In 1666, with engineer Mateus do Couto in charge, the fort helped stop a Spanish fleet sent to seize Maria Francisca of Savoy as she arrived to marry King Afonso VI. The fort was badly damaged by Spanish corsairs that year, repaired with more firepower and finally finished in 1678, according to an inscription over one of its gates. Timeline of the Berlengas fort 1502: King Manuel I orders a fortress on Berlenga Grande. 1513: Hieronymite monks settle on the island, later abandoning it. 1651: The building plan is set after a royal envoy’s visit. 1655: The unfinished fort repels three Barbary pirate ships. 1666: It helps stop a Spanish fleet, then is wrecked and rebuilt. 1678: Construction is completed. 1821: King John VI orders a remodel, including a new chapel. 1953: The fort is converted into a guesthouse. 2011: The Berlengas become a UNESCO biosphere reserve. The walls saw more war after that. British troops used it as a base during the French invasion of Portugal, French forces later looted it and burned the chapel, and in the Liberal Wars it served as a springboard for troops loyal to Pedro IV attacking the fortress at Peniche. Fourteen years later its guns were removed, and decline set in. What it looks like now The fort is an irregular octagon, stretched north to south, built partly from the islands’ pink granite. Its two-story outer walls double as narrow enclosed corridors running around the whole perimeter; the outer rooms served as casemates and the central block as the armory. Arched windows break the north and west faces, while the south and east faces carry rows of cannon openings. Portugal’s national monuments agency restored it in 1986 and 1987, and it now opens to visitors in summer as a rest house. The island around it is a nature reserve for seabirds, with no permanent residents. Badiyaa has looked at other lonely strongholds, including Ksar Draa, a round clay fortress in Algeria’s Sahara, and Iberia’s own deep past in Spain’s Treasure of Villena. Count the years and the fort took 176 to finish from the first royal order, or 27 from the 1651 plan to the 1678 inscription. Further reading Wikipedia: Fort of São João Baptista (Berlengas) Wikipedia: Berlengas Image: Vitor Oliveira, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. How we work.",
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