Around 1128, the Castle of Pombal, which was originally a former Roman castro and Arab fortress, was donated to the Knights Templar by Afonso Henriques in order to defend Coimbra and which included a vast territory of land.

[1] At the conclusion of the project an inscription was carved over the door to the keep, something promoted by D. Gualdim Pais in the medieval period, while in 1353, the castle and village were donated to the Order of Christ.

[1][2] Little changed during the early Middle Ages to the Romanesque fortification, and only re-thinking of its battlements were identified in the reign of Manuel I of Portugal, which included the definition of the barbican and reinforcement of the medieval walls.

[1][2] A similar reconstruction of the Church of Santa Maria do Castelo began in 1560, under the alcalde Pedro de Sousa Ribeiro, an antecedent of the Count of Castelo-Melhor, who held the governorship since the reign of Afonso V until 1834.

[2] In 1923, a formal request was sent by the Municipal Council of Pombal to the Ministry of War (Portuguese: Ministério da Guerra) soliciting the transfer of the Castle to their authority.

The transfer included land in the village and ancillary terrains, that constituted Military Camp No.1: "in the municipal square the transfer of the ruins of the castle to the Núcleo, demarcated by 32 stone markers, numbered successively from the north to south, from the east, and numbered with the abbreviations M.G....To the Núcleo went the responsibility to conserve and guard the property, with the assistance of the Ministry of War, when necessary; the concession and title was free, with indefinite time limit, while property remained in the hands of the Ministry; the Núcleo was forbidden to perform whatsoever remodelling, even recuperations that involved demolish or new constructions in masonry, or movements of land in the esplanades, without a written license from the Ministry of War".

[1] A similar request was sent to the Ministry in 1934, that proposed the planting of trees and landscaping, which was approved by the executive commission of the Municipal Council and authorized by the Conselho Superior de Belas Artes.

Similarly, in 1937, more repairs were completed on the walls, including the corners, chemin de ronde, parapets in the southern facade; reconstruction of the stoneworks, chemin de ronde, vaulted arches on the southern and western facade; construction of the roof frame in the keep; construction of pavements and staircase, between the floors of the keep; replacement of the exterior gates; and excavations in the military square.

In 2004, the Municipal Council of Pombal presented a project to requalify and revalorize the Castle and its grounds, which at the time was being studied by the IPPAR Instituto Português do Património Arquitectónico (Portuguese Institute for Architectural Patrimony).

[1] In November, of the same year, a risk assessment for the castle was undertaken by the DGEMN Direcção Geral dos Edifícios e Monumentos Nacionais (General-Directorate for Buildings and National Monuments).

The structure, in the form of a shield, is encircled by walls and chemin de ronde, broken by prismatic merlons and reinforced at its vertices and regular intervals by rectangular turrets.

[1] An inscription commemorating the institution of an heir engraved on a stone slab bordered by a polygonal fillet, etched in shallow grooves, showing signs of erosion.