The Serra includes the buildings of a secularized Carmelite monastery, founded in 1628. The convent woods have long been known for their cypress, plane, evergreen oak, cork and other forest trees, many of which have stood for centuries and attained an immense size. A bull of Pope Gregory XV (1623), anathematizing trespassers and forbidding women to approach, is inscribed on a tablet at the main entrance; another bull, of Pope Urban VIII (1643), threatens with excommunication any person harming the trees. Located in the northwestern corner is the Mata Nacional do Bussaco (Bussaco Forest), an ancient walled arboretum.
