The textile story of Pevidém

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Pevidém is the town of the parish of Selho São Jorge, in the municipality of Guimarães, lying between the River Ave and its tributary the Selho, 6 km west of Guimarães. The parish entered written history in the 13th century and has been a town (vila) since 1995. On the Monte da Santa are remains of a hillfort with traces of walls, although many of its stones were reused in the walls of local houses; polished stone axes typical of the Neolithic were found there and are kept in the Museu da Sociedade Martins Sarmento. The royal inquiries of 1290, 1301 and 1308 already mention the parish of São Jorge, and the parish of Paraíso was annexed to it for administrative purposes in 1888 and for all purposes in 1902. The name Pevidém, thought to date from the 19th century, comes from the Casa do Pevidém, a once important house of the Araújo Salgado family. Textiles are the town's story: home-based flax spinning and weaving, a tradition centred on the Guimarães area almost since the founding of the nation, gave way to cotton, which grew especially between 1884 and 1923. A pioneering generation of local entrepreneurs set up the first weaving workshops in the 1880s, using local water power, and in 1908 the Fábrica do Moinho do Buraco brought the first industrial cotton spinning. The industry created thousands of jobs, with golden decades in the 1960s and 1970s and hard crises in the 1980s and 1990s. Several squares and streets are named after figures linked to local development, such as Francisco Inácio da Cunha Guimarães and Albano Martins Coelho Lima. The parish council also highlights the Carnaval de Pevidém.

Craft beer in Pevidém is still a rare find, which makes tracking down a local bottle part of the adventure. After a walk past the old textile mills, ask around for something locally brewed.