The Church of Our Lady of the Incarnation (or the Parochial Church of Porches) is a church situated in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of Porches, in the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

of Lagoa in the

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

region of

Algarve The Algarve (, , ) is the southernmost NUTS statistical regions of Portugal, NUTS II region of continental Portugal. It has an area of with 467,495 permanent inhabitants and incorporates 16 municipalities (concelho, ''concelhos'' or ''município ...

History

Founded in the 16th century, the church retains a few vestiges of its early history. Only the chancel remains of the original church, which was later ruined by the 1755 earthquake. It was sometime during the 18th century that azulejo tile was installed in the main nave. A portion of the older temple was incorporated into the structure of the modern church, although remodeling in 1882 transformed the character of the present building.

Architecture

The exterior is an example of southern Portuguese church architecture with a somber facade. The principal facade is oriented towards the west, with a triptych portico aligned on either side by a square annexes, surmounted by royal crown. The interior is notable for the chancel, dedicated to ''

Our Lady of the Incarnation Our or OUR may refer to: * The possessive form of " we" Places * Our (river), in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany * Our, Belgium, a village in Belgium * Our, Jura, a commune in France Other uses * Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), a governm ...

'', with ribbed vaulting, and faced with tiles from the 17th century; and an 18th-century altar-piece of gilded carved wood with several images. The vaulted-ceiling within the presbytery is decorated in azulejo tile, while the chancel is gilded in gold. More recently, the Irish artist,

Patrick Swift Patrick Swift (1927–1983) was an Irish painter who worked in Dublin, London and the Algarve, Portugal. Overview In Dublin he formed part of the Envoy, A Review of Literature and Art, Envoy arts review / McDaid's pub circle of artistic and l ...

, designed the stations of the cross for the church. Swift is buried in the local cemetery.Swift re-introduced pottery making to Porches when he founded, with Lima de Freitas,

Porches Pottery (Olaria Algarve) Porches Pottery is a producer of hand-painted pottery in the town of Porches, in the Algarve region of Portugal. The pottery style was founded in 1968 by artists Patrick Swift and Lima de Freitas, in order to revive a traditional Algarve pottery ...

in 1968.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Matriz (Porches) Buildings and structures in Lagoa, Algarve Nossa Senhora Encarnacao