Praça Velha

Praça Velha (Old Square), formerly known as Praça (Square), was the primitive civic center and the market square of the city of Póvoa de Varzim in Portugal. It is located in Bairro da Matriz historic district and is surrounded by the main church of Póvoa de Varzim (Igreja Matriz), the primitive Town Hall and the house of a notable 17th-century Póvoa de Varzim seafarer.

Since the Middle Ages the Praça has been used for markets and fairs, to such an extent that the term "Praça" is often used for "market" in the local parlance. Praça Velha became the town's urban core in the Late Middle Ages and was located in the royal land established by the early Portuguese kings after disputes with the Lords of Varzim. Throw Rua de São Pedro street, it bordered the Varzim Old town square, the core of the medieval fiefdom of Varzim. With the Age of Discovery, the area around the square developed with rich architecture built by the seafarers, a local bourgeoisie, and declined with the 1791 royal provision which established the new town square, Praça do Almada.

In 1308, King Denis wrote a charter in which he gave his royal land in Varzim to 54 local families. The inhabitants would have to create a "Póvoa", a new settlement in Varzim, bordered to the south by the primitive Roman and Early Medieval core of the Town of Varzim, which was controlled by knights under a feudal structure. King Denis also encouraged the creation of free fairs all around the kingdom. In time, the Praça became the site of the free fair and the location for the public butchery. It was a wide area bordered by the Town Hall (from the 15th century) and the Madre Deus Chapel (prior to 1521).

The early Town Hall governed the municipality from the Praça from the first half of the 16th century and probably much earlier. The building was probably built in the 15th century and originally had an arcade structure.

In the 16th century, single storey houses dominated the town's landscape, but there are indications of multiple floored habitations, with curved lintels and sculpted exterior facades. This more advanced architecture is associated with rich gentlemen who had made their fortunes through seafaring. These included Amador Alvares, explorer of the route to India, and navigators Pedro Fernandes, Diogo Pyz de São Pedro, Lourenço Dias and others. This bourgeoisie was the owner of most of the real estate around the Square which the population saw as the urban area.

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