This building is placed in Quinta Nova, at the confluence with the Quinta da Nogueira, near the river São Gonçalo. Around the building there is a circular area paved with small loose stones.
Once there was, at the same place, a hermitage with the same invocation.
Built around 1571, in Quinta Nova, belonged to the Távoras' family, this temple was already quite ruined in 1720.
Actually, the description that Father Agostinho Dias da Silva made about the hermitage reveals that, on that date, only remained the main chancel, the rest was changed to gathering cattle.
However, the priest informs us that, in the same location, had been raised another building to contain the image of São Gonçalo - the Monóptero of São Gonçalo - whose construction should take place about that time.
At the time of the Távoras the Quinta da Nogueira was a large game reserve, we think that the construction of the Monóptero, in honor of São Gonçalo, would be a place for hunters, where they prayed and thanked the hunt.
The Monóptero is a building of civil architecture, baroque, circular shape, marked by Solomonic columns with Ionic chapitels, topped by a hollow cornice with balustrade and a dome-shaped brick roof, based on four circular steps torus-shaped and reversed. Over the base it rises up six rectangular plinths that support the six Solomonic columns 1.90m tall, topped by Ionic capital and abacus. The columns support a 3m circular frame with friezes around.
The top has a circular balustrade cornice with 30 "conuletos", which are their upper finish, housing the brick dome in ruins.
Associated with each plinth is a bank in granite stone.
Inside, the center of the flagstone base, is a rectangular recess, where were located the image of São Gonçalo, is thought to have been stolen and taken to a nearby village. The Monóptero is an exemplar of great rarity with no function assigned. It is an exemplary construction in granite stone.
Location: Mogadouro
