The Monastery of Santa Maria de Salzedas was once among Portugal’s largest Cistercian monasteries and was granted extensive land in the surrounding area to cultivate and populate. Its construction began in 1155 after being given the land by Egas Moniz and his wife Teresa Afonso, the tutor and mother of D. Afonso Henriques. The monastery was consecrated in 1255 upon completion of the monastic buildings.

The church, a grand structure, stands out from the small village that grew to the east of the monastery. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, it underwent significant renovations and now displays an entirely eighteenth-century facade that is still unfinished. However, some of the original structure can still be seen inside the church, with thirteenth-century carved stones covering one of the chapels in the apse, displaying columns and capitals with Romanesque decorations. The church’s interior also contains noteworthy features, such as paintings of St. Peregrine and St. Sebastian attributed to the sixteenth-century master painter Vasco Fernandes (Grão Vasco), as well as several seventeenth-century paintings by Bento Coelho da Silveira.

The monastery extended southwards along the Torno river, as required by the Cistercian order, but only two cloisters remain today. The larger cloister was built along the church’s southern wall, while the smaller one to the west is badly damaged, with only some arches supported by Tuscan columns still standing.