Roman aqueduct
Rome's first aqueduct was built in 312 BC, and supplied a water fountain at the city's cattle market. By the 3rd century AD, the city had eleven aqueducts, sustaining a population of over a million in a water-extravagant economy; most of the water supplied the city's many public baths. Cities and towns throughout the Roman Empire emulated this model, and funded aqueducts as objects of public interest and civic pride, "an expensive yet necessary luxury to which all could, and did, aspire".
Santa Clara Aqueduct
Founded at the beginning of the 14th century, the monastic community of Santa Clara always debated the problems with water supply to the monastery in the territory of Vila do Conde. At that time a tank (the "arca de água") was constructed within the monastery, which quickly became insufficient to the communities needs. In 1626, the abbey D. Maria de Meneses, from the House of Pentieiros, purchased lands and contracted a master-builder to construct an aqueduct to bring waters from a spring in Terroso, in Póvoa de Varzim, to support the convent. The construction was interrupted by abbey D. Catarina Lima in 1636, owing to the discovery of a significant slope, making the prior work useless.