The famous Portuguese colonial Rachol Fort has been completely erased, leaving behind the traces of the moat and the main gate.

[1] It was only in 1520 that the Hindus under King Krishnadevaraya, also known as Krishnaraya, from the Vijayanagar empire with help of the Portuguese took complete control of Rachol.

Due to Jesuits being attacked in the late 1560s, a decree on December 1565, forbidding the erection of new temples and the repairs of the existing ones, was issued by the viceroy António de Noronha (1564–1568).

Rachol is located 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) north-east of Margão, the headquarters of South Goa district.

As this first church at Rachol and hence Salcete was built to completion in the year 1565, on the site of Hindu temples and was built in mud with a thatched roof, it can thus be called the mother church (Matriz) of the whole of South Goa and was named Igreja da Nossa Senhora de Neves.

It was the first Archbishop of Goa, Dom Gaspar Jorge de Leão Pereira, who personally visited Margão and the surrounding areas to choose the location.

At the peak of its power, it had as many as 100 guns on its ramparts, helping it to hold the Maratha armies at bay for months.

As the Portuguese empire in Goa expanded with the New Conquests, the guns found new areas of deployment, and the fort fell from favour and was finally abandoned.

The fort soon fell into a state of disrepair, and nothing remains of it today except the stone archway which spans the road and the old moat around the hill.

The edifice that presently houses the seminary was constructed by the Jesuits with donations from the king of Portugal, Dom Sebastião.

This was constructed in the area previously occupied by strong dominance of Muslims and originally had a Muslim-built fortress.

Three years later, on 31 October 1609, with the solemn celebration of the Vespers, the "College of All Saints" (Colégio de Todos os Santos) was blessed and inaugurated.

This festivity is preceded by a novena of preparation for the locals around and a week-long retreat (spiritual exercises) for the seminarians.

Three years later, in 1762, Archbishop-Primate Dom António Taveira da Neiva Brum e Silveira, converted this abandoned College into the "Diocesan Seminary of the Good Shepherd" (Seminário do Bom Pastor) and placed it under the protection of the Infant Jesus.

The retable of the altar of the internal Chapel of the seminary bears an inspiring picture of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

In 1774, the ruling Royal Treasury Junta of Goa abruptly suppressed the seminary on the pretext that certain conditions were not being fulfilled, the real reason being that of economy.

In 1781, owing to a mass-petition by the people of Salcete and the Municipality of Margão, the Court of Portugal ordered the seminary to be restored.

The College was thus reopened, and its management was entrusted to the Congregation of the Mission, popularly called Vincentians or Lazarists.

These priests who came from Italy, brought with them the sacred relics and a vial containing the blood of a Roman saint and martyr, St. Constantius.