Countess Mumadona Dias ordered the first castle in the 10th century to protect a nearby monastery, and a document of December 968 calls it the recently built Castle of São Mamede. Count Henry expanded it heavily at the end of the 11th century. King Denis remodeled it between the late 13th and early 14th centuries, and King John I added two towers flanking the entrance, dated 1383 to 1433.
The article calls the style late Romanesque, elaborated in the early Gothic period. The granite walls follow a pentagram-like plan with eight rectangular towers and a central keep. It gives no measurements. In 1836 councilmen proposed demolishing it for the stone, but the idea was never accepted. Restoration began in 1937, and it was re-inaugurated on June 4, 1940.
It is a National Monument and part of a UNESCO site since 2001. The state owns it.
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