The Retreats of Nossa Senhora de Serra and Santa Maria Magdalena at Chimbel. About two miles to the south of Ribandar, in the village of Chimbel, of which that place forms a part, are situated the two retreats of Nossa Senhora de Serra and of Santa Maria Magdalena. The former building is spacious, and was originally a convent of the Carmelites of the third order. It was begun to be erected in 1747; and the friars came to live there three years after; but their rules were not approved by the Pope till 1790. It had a church dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which still exists. In 1835 the Government ordered the convent to be closed, when twenty-three friars left it, and its moveable and immovable property, amounting in value to £7,857-4-0, was seized by the public treasury. The Retreats, as stated before, were subsequently transferred to this building in 1841. They are under the management of respectable ladies, who not only look to the good behaviour of the grown-up inmates supported there by charity or at their own expense, but also of the girls who are entrusted to their care.
None of them are allowed to go out without permission, and no males are admitted within. Marriageable girls are sometimes visited by gentlemen who wish to marry them. In one of the outer rooms of the abovementioned building, the Committee of the Santa Casa de Misericordia, by whom the Retreats are administered, holds its sittings; it is adorned with the portraits of three of its patrons, viz., Salvador Antão, a convert from the Bráhman caste and a native of Rachol, who died in 1617, and who is represented with flowing hair and trousers like those of Zouaves;
Joao Pero Morato, a Portuguese priest, who died in 1658; and a Portuguese nobleman, Christovão Luis Andrade, who died in 1756. There is also the portrait of the Archbishop Dom Fr. Manoel de Santa Catharina, which belonged probably to the Carmelite Convent, of which he was a patron.
The Retreat Santa Maria Magdalena, which is to the right of the former one, is a small building, and has a chapel of its own.
To the south of the convent of the Carmelites, in the village of Morombim, was formerly situated the Conventual House of Santa Barbara, where the Dominican friars used to go during convalescence for change of air. It had moveable property of the value of £1,742-9-1, which was appropriated by the Government when the house was abandoned. It is now in ruins.