Gunpowder Museum

Oeiras lies on the Estoril coast, 15 km E of Lisbon, and is most celebrated for the eighteenth century palace in the Rococo style built by the Hungarian architect Carlos Marcel for the Marquis of Pombal. It was also one of Portugal’s principal sources of gunpowder and the former black powder mills now comprise a museum. Visitors can see how water-power was used to blend charcoal with sulphur and saltpetre and there are lurid accounts of some of the explosions that caused severe loss of life to the workforce.