The Palace of the Garbage King

[IdleRich]

Mentioned this in the castles thread the other day cos we planned to visit it. But - quick recap - if you're driving near Barreiro or Coina or whatever on the other side of the river from Lisbon you can't help noticing this weird spooky looking tower thing. There is a huge valley and right in the centre on a somewhat raised mound is this distinctive building which is visible from miles away cos of its location, if you're on the motorway you're bound to see it and wonder what it is and google it - and you'll find out that some guy got rich in the 1800s taking rubbish from Lisbon on his five boats (called "The Lame", "Beelzebub", "Lucifer", "Devil" and "Satan") and then bought this old castle (although some versions say he built it) and then changed it around a bit.

Officially, the reason for rebuilding the palace was to make it more suitable for family life. The locals, however, were convinced that Gomes was rebuilding his palace to be the headquarters of a Masonic Lodge. This version could be plausible, since the building's architecture contains a network of underground labyrinths with numerous Masonic symbols as decor.

He also named the place "Hell farm" and "Devil's Tower" or something. I don't think he was a satanist, he just wanted to piss off the church. That's the official version anyhow. He was certainly a philanthropist and built schools and stuff. But soon sold the place (some say he never even lived there) and it's been through various hands before catching fire in the 1980s (I think) and being pretty much abandoned since.
So we decided to see if we could explore. We drove to Coina and parked the car by the side of the road and wandered up to a roped off, overgrown road with loads of faded old signs saying "No Entry" "Private Property" and suchlike. There was a weird guy in his car parked outside it and he immediately accosted us, he said he'd just been round it and the thing to do is walk to the end of this road and then crawl through this hole in the big door. All fine... but then this guy wouldn't fuck off, he got out of his car and insisted on fist bumping us and telling us how haunted the place was... it felt like the start of a horror film when they meet some slightly off yokel who is just too persistent... and who turns up later wearing someone else's skin or fucking a pig or whatever.
In the end we just kinda walked away from him down the road through all these abandoned buildings







I have to say, when we reached the gate (below) I'm glad he'd told us about climbing through that hole cos I don't think I would have done it otherwise. Also, it really stank of something dead, or maybe shit, and there were loads of flies around by the gate (it was really hot today like 25 or so). You can't really see the hole but it's in the shadow there, you really have to crawl on your belly through the dirt... which was fine but somehow cos of the smell it was unpleasant even though you weren't actually crawling through mud or shit.



Also, what was weird, as we were by that gate, we could hear a big dog barking on the other side of the wall... to the left I mean. And as I went through the gate it started doing that really deep guttural growling which is exactly the noise you don't want to hear from a pitbull sized beast. Not that I ever saw it but it must have been really close and it sounded huge. Combined with the weird guy from before it was slightly unsettling.

 

[IdleRich]

Anyway, through the hole - and into The Zone - you get out into this huge open valley - you can see the hole better from this side



The valley inside is instantly less creepy... until you look towards the palace itself that is



There are loads of sheep wandering around and - strangely - we could hear volley after volley of gunfire from over the trees in the distance. There must be a shooting range or something there but it reminded Liza of how her friend was saying that he went to explore somewhere similar near Sintra and the landowner actually took a potshot at them and that put us further on edge.

So we walked up to the building and were amazed to see all these old bits of stone that around it that must have made up this magical garden at one point



The above is the start of what I'd call (though could be wrong) a pergola that goes on for ages, although part of it has been crushed by that tree there.



It goes on for miles

 

[Murphy]

Carcosa. Watch your back. Does it have a chunky landscaper with a spaghetti face and green ears, likes to view the infernal plane off a lawnmower talking in different character voices?

 

[IdleRich]

More of the pergola which led to this overgrown garden - we managed to navigate through the undergrowth by throwing bolts to see where it was safe








Looking back towards the tower

 

[IdleRich]

Carcosa. Watch your back. Does it have a chunky landscaper with a spaghetti face and green ears, likes to view the infernal plane off a lawnmower talking in different character voices?

I was definitely watching my back the whole way... didn't actually see anyone... but....

 

[IdleRich]

So yeah, we wandered around by the tower for a bit... more gardens





Then saw these strange wooden structures... thought at first they were for chickens



But no chickens there... my next assumption was naturally that they were used in some kind of sacrificial rite



But on closer inspection, I think they were some kind of make-shift beehives - at least, loads of bees came out of them and I backed off fairly quickly.

 

[IdleRich]

Then we finally faced up to the building itself - after a visit from Black Francis and some mates



Building is creepy as fuck and burnt out - cracks in the sides and stuff... I guess completely beyond repair and soon gonna just collapse

 

[IdleRich]

Sadly you can't really go in cos the floor is destroyed as soon as you climb up to the doorway and look in



This is a pic I took from the doorway looking down



Probably the same place but looking up-ish



Some of the burnt out bits you can see but mostly it's just rubble.

 

[IdleRich]

Then we finally tore ourselves away and walked back across the plane. We tried to find an alternative way out to avoid the dog and hole.








There were a few crumbling outhouses blocking the way to the road though (this one with a palm tree growing out of it)



In the end we had to go out through the same way. I kept looking out for the dog and then it started barking again, and I actually thought I could see a brown shape moving through the undergrowth in one of the broken down buildings... and then I heard a voice shouting - definitely the gardener from True Detective but I didn't stay to find out, wriggled through the hole lickety-split. And back to where we started.

 

[IdleRich]

I would like to know about freemasonsry in Portugal there as there seems to be a connection here and also with the initiation well in Sintra - plus one our friends has a dad who is or was a freemason. Seems to be quite big here.

 

[IdleRich]

Ironically, once you get past the shit-smelling entrance, the garbage king's land was actually one of the cleanest and free-est from rubbish of any outdoor space I've been in Portugal.

 

[IdleRich]

Found a drone video... looks as though the whole place was open to the public fairly recently

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