Bizarre ruins of Radium spa in Portugal

The history of Radium treatment is long and complex, the building and ruin of this incredible place sums up the success, decline and fall of a bizarre craze 100 years ago.
On a flying visit to Portugal, we came across this amazing ruin by chance.
We had no idea what the purpose of the place might be but the results of research proved to be fascinating. It wasn't easy as all information was in Portuguese but with our rusty knowledge we fathomed it out, quite a weird little piece of history tucked away in the middle of nowhere.

Originally this was called Hotel Serra da Pena or Termas de Águas Radium (Radium Water Baths)it is situated near Caria and Sortelha, Sabugal in Portugal.

Built between 1910 and 1920 in a neo Moorish/Medieval style in solid granite it was designed to accommodate 150 guests , 90 in a luxury wing and the rest in more economical rooms, all partaking of the various treatments and therapies offered by the spa, enjoying  food prepared by an international chef and the surrounding gardens  planted with thousands of shrubs and trees. All this founded on a deep dark cavity in the basement where the highly radioactive hot water bubbled up from natural Uranium deposits in the mountain and was pumped around the hotel for some weird and wonderful treatments and also its own bottling plant which sold the radium water all over Portugal.

Walking through the ruined halls and roofless spaces one struggles to imagine what went on here in the glory years of the 1920s and even up until the 1940s when nasty rumours started to spread about radium treatments. Despite 30 years of radium fever the decline was fast and complete.

In legend the spa was founded by Don Rodrigo, a Spanish count who discovered the spring whilst hunting in the area and whose daughter was cured from a dreadful skin condition after drinking and bathing in the "miraculous" spring waters. In gratitude he ordered the construction of a spa.

But the first recorded information on the thermal baths is from 1910, when knowledge of radioactivity first started. Radium, discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie in 1898, is a chemical element belonging to the alkaline earth metal family. At that time it was promoted as being beneficial to health, the presence of radium in water was especially considered an important factor in its therapeutic application. It also coincided with the start of Uranium mining by the French company  Société d'uranie et Radio in Portugal.

In nature, radium is found in uranium. Radium is not necessary for living organisms and adverse health effects are likely when it is incorporated into biochemical processes because of its radioactivity and chemical reactivity. Currently, other than its use in nuclear medicine, radium has no commercial application but starting in the early years of the 20^th century there was a veritable radium craze. Radioactivity was promised as a solution to all physical, psychic, industrial, medical and cosmetic ills. In the face of such great promises, people went crazy for radioactive elements, from face creams to children's toys.

 It was used as a radioactive source for radio luminescent devices such as glow in the dark watch dials, cosmetics and food and drink products but mainly in radioactive quackery for its supposed curative powers.

Due to the high demand for products with radioactivity, water bottling and water therapy centres began to vie in demonstrating which of their waters were the most radioactive. Radioactive water was used to treat the problems of rheumatism, gout, arterial hypertension, oedema, circulatory insufficiency, hypertension, kidneys, and gastrointestinal disorders.

 The most popular treatments were radioactive sludge applied to the joints for curing arthritis and joint problems, radioactive electric pads, baths, ingestion of water and the new Silla Studa.  The Studa chair was introduced to the spa by the Radium Water Company Ltd. Since the 19th century, enemas were a highly recommended treatment by various therapists. Colonic irrigation treatments were not only performed in clinics, but also in spas. One of its defenders was the famous Dr. Kellogg  of cereal fame who used colon hydrotherapy in the well-known spa of Battle Creek.

The radium chair used 35 litres of mineral water for a total disinfection of the colon.

Spas began marketing bottled water, in 1927 at the Lyon Congress  judged that the water from this spa was one of the most radioactive waters in the world.

."Radium water gives health, vigor and strength"

As further evidence of the radioactivity fever here is an official map printed by the Portuguese government in the first half of the last century, used in some schools. What is striking is that the map includes a chart in which the curative effects of radioactive waters from different  pplaces are includes a chart in which the curative effects of radioactive waters from different places are explained.

These glory days were soon to pass. At the beginning the authorities only gave advice not to use the radium spas but not to prohibit.  Soon the media interest increased.

Announcement in the Modern Mecanix de Janeiro magazine in 1933.

The American Medical Association reports the probable uselessness and even more probable danger of the ingestion of radioactive waters or the use of other remedies that supposedly contain radio. There is no evidence that this water is beneficial.

The spa began to decline and by 1944 there were only 44 guests, it suspended activities in 1945. In 1951 the English owned ,Compañía Portuguesa de Radio  would buy the concession of hotel and mining but it went bankrupt and from 1954 to 1955 the directors gutted the site of anything saleable including all metallic elements for sale in Lisbon.  Mining activities ceased in 1961.

The thermal complex was auctioned in Lisbon and bought by a family whose identity is unknown. Later it was bought by Ramiro Lopes with the intention of turning it into a luxury hotel, a project that failed. In the year 2000 it was sold to his brother Antonio Lopes in order to become a hotel and a golf course, and again the project was abandoned.

In the meantime the ruin crumbles a little more each year, maybe soon it will collapse and all that will be left is a trickle of water from deep in the mountain, possibly glowing a little in the dark.

Zamarrillas

A haunting place lost in the Llanos de Caceres, a collection of buildings which represent the story of Extremadura since the reconquista in the middle of the 13th century. Now completely uninhabited except for the thriving stork colony with nests on the towers and crumbling walls of the ruins. We had a fascinating walk around the whole area which is set in an emblematic Extremadura landscape.

Known as Heredamiento y Prado de Zamarrillas, the earliest building is a casa fuerte, a fortified house, built on a small eminence, la casa fuerte de los Duranes.

These casa fuertes were built in the first years after the reconquista. The Christians from the north had finally re conquered this part of Spain after six centuries of Moorish settlement but  the Moors were still very much in evidence further south, the conquest of Granada took a further 250 years so the casas fuertes were a symbols of power with caution, scattered across Extremadura, safe refuges on journeys between the larger towns and guarding against possible Moorish attack or cattle raids.

Towns such as Caceres, Trujillo and Merida did not start to develop beyond their walls until the beginning of the 16th century when there was a surge of development fuelled by the riches brought back by the conquistadors of Extremadura from the new world, mainly Peru and Mexico. The newly ennobled conquistadors built palaces and endowed churches, convents and monasteries.

 In Zamarrillas the Casa Grande palace was built in the 16th century by the Ovando family with their coat of arms still in place. 

All through the centuries the rich pasture land and abundant water supply from the Salor river would have been used for raising sheep and cattle, particularly sheep, the wool trade of Extremadura made many fortunes. The barns and outbuildings of the herdade were used for storage, wool shearing and housing the farm workers, there are documents recording up to 200 people living and working on the estate at its peak. 

It seems that by the 18th century the farm was declining, perhaps split into too many parts by inheritance, lack of workers or it was even suggested it was stricken by a plague of termites.

The ruin brought by neglect and time was completed at the beginning of the 19th century in the war of independence or the peninsular wars when the herdade was invaded by French troops who destroyed much of what was left leaving the buildings open to the elements. 

Some renovation has taken place in recent years, re-roofing some buildings and maintenance of the dam which has created an idyllic lake behind the casa fuerte. 

We spoke to a shepherd who was grazing his flock near the lake, he said that the land and property was owned by many different owners, some unknown and unrecorded making it difficult to carry out any cohesive renovation project. 

Unfortunately the most ruined building is the church. It was once known as Nuestra Senora de la Esclarecida, a Romanesque structure from the 14th century with a hexagonal apse and remains of a pillared portico.

The image of the virgin and child once housed here was fortunately saved from destruction by Napoleonic troops and can now be seen in Caceres at the Church of Santiago de los Caballeros, although much damaged by time it is probably one of the oldest images of the virgin in Extremadura. Nowadays the church has long been used as a barn for animals and at one time a mechanical grain mill, part of the machinery still exists in a lean-to shed, difficult to imagine the devout congregation of Zamarrillas praying here under the calm gaze of the virgin and child.

Hoop petticoat daffodil, Narcissus bulbocodium

Extremadura in 1928 by Ruth Matilda Anderson

Signs and wonders....

Super blood wolf moon total eclipse between 5 a.m. and 6a.m. at Finca al-manzil seen from the porch.

“Super” refers to the fact that the Moon is closest to the Earth in its orbit when the total eclipse takes place, “blood” is a reference to the reddish hue the Moon will take on during the eclipse, and “wolf” as full moons in January are apparently known as Full Wolf Moons maybe because of hungry wolves howling at the full moon in cold hard winters.

Our beautiful environment

Winter walk to La Preciosa

One of our favourite walks from Montanchez village to Manfred's olive grove, La Preciosa. It's about 3kms across the sierra on a high slope looking down on Arroyomolinos. It feels like the end of the world, perfect peace and beautiful views. The olive grove is ancient with wonderfully knarled olive trees and a few old fig trees, surrounded by intricately layed stone walls, it's a special refuge and often our picnic spot.
Today the clouds were lying low in the valleys but up above the sun was really bright and warm, the sky a gorgeous luminous blue.