Carapinhal is situated on the west side of the little valley of the Barroca do Lameiro. The 1527 census shows one household resident at that time. The old houses in the village follow the course of the road – a mixture of colonial-style houses, old quintas, and modernised and new houses. There are also several buildings that are derelict, showing the method of building. The round glacial boulders, commonly found over this region, are held together by clay and smaller stones, with granite or sandstone forming the corners and the stones round doorways and windows. The land below the village is fertile, and the valley has many springs and wells, still used for irrigation. There are several large orange trees and lemon trees that take advantage of the water close to the surface. On the hill behind the village the pine trees show signs of resin collection - the older trees have trunks that appear scalloped from decades of being worked. The resin was sold to a company in Arganil, and later sent to Tomar. (Although our research shows that there was a resin company in the village of Chapinheira that was closed in the 1960’s and was bulldozed in the 1970’s. All that remains today is the large well.)
We were fortunate to meet Maria do Carmo, Alice and Cristina who told us about their village:
The chapel is dedicated to Sr. ª da Conceição. In the past many weddings were held in this chapel and all three women were married there.
In the past there was always water on the Barroca of Carapinhal, in which the women made pools for washing their clothes. Afterwards they laid out the clothes to bleach in the sun, marking each person’s place with a line on the ground.

There was a mill (‘o moinho da ribeira’) that stood on the barroca do Carapinhal, below the village. The inhabitants of Carapinhal cultivated maize, rye, wheat and chick-peas. The straw from the cereals was used to fill mattresses and they made brooms with the maize straw. Everything was used. There was an apple tree on the hillside below the village where the sweetest and most beautiful red apples grew. The apples were picked and stored in cool dark rooms on a bed of straw. ‘Aguadente’ (firewater) was made in the village from surplus grapes.
On the little square of the village is the old font. In the past, before the official water supply was installed by the ‘câmara’, the three richest families put in their own pipes from the public font to their houses. This meant that sometimes the poorer people had no water supply, and they had to go to the wealthy families to ask for some water.

One of the women told us that once she went with her donkey, taking a cart full of manure to a field that she cultivated in Telhada, when the cart fell on its side. The donkey also fell on her back, legs in the air. The woman was very concerned about her beloved donkey, that she called ‘Rita Peixeira’ (Rita the Fishwife) and so she cut off the harness with her sickle. Her husband was not very pleased when he heard about this, since now they needed to buy a new harness.
Another of the women told a story about her uncle (the goat breeder in Telhada) who was once walking along the old track to Telhada when some men jumped out at him with handkerchiefs over their faces. Her uncle was frightened and tried to run, but when the men took their handkerchiefs away he saw that he knew them, and that they were only joking with him. He was still most put out and said to them - “If I had died, I would get my own back on you!” (This was obviously a much-repeated story around the villages!)
Carapinhal was always a very close community, and like many of the neighbouring villages, everyone would gather together to peel the maize at harvest time. There was a popular game played, whereby any person peeling a corn containing dark kernels had to go round and give everybody a kiss – this was called the ‘Chí’. About 55 years ago, the father of one of the women had a field on Fundo do Barreiro that produced about 140 alqueres (a measure for grain between 13 and 22 litres) of maize, and all the people from Carapinhal went there to help peel the maize crops. She thinks this may have had something to do with the fact that her father’s ‘aguardente de mel’ (honey firewater) was very famous!