The village of Barreiro sits alongside the main road that runs between Vila Nova do Ceira and Olho Marinho. The old houses in the village are built from the round glacial stones that are abundant in the region. The ground below the village slopes gently down to the side of the river Ceira, where the fertile soils have been cultivated for many centuries.
In the past a smith, a shoemaker and a tailor worked in the village. The chapel in the village is dedicated to St.ª Barbara and the festa is always in the last week of August. During the festa of São João at midsummer, it used to be the custom that arches were made of wood and decorated with myrtle and flowers. In the middle of the square they put bundles of rosemary that were lit and then they jumped over them - this was called “as fogueiras de São João” (‘the bonfire of St. John’), although it certainly has a pagan origin. At carnival time, many years ago, they used to perform the ‘cantar as pulhas’, where somebody would hide and loudly declare all the rumours and secrets of the village from the preceding year.

The people lived mostly from agriculture, particularly maize and potatoes, and also from resin collection. The resin was sold to the company in Arganil, and the workers came for the barrels full of resin. People that owned many pine trees rented them to the villagers for resin collecting. Other villagers worked in the brick company at Chão dos Santos.
In the past, people that did not have their own land rented land from the big owners. At the end of the year, they had to pay two parts of their harvest to the owner, and only one part was for them. The same happened with the olives. We know that life was hard, and every piece of land was cultivated. They even used to carry baskets of manure up to the hills of Carapinhal to fertilize the fields. But when it came to harvest and the maize peeling, all the villagers came together, and there was always a cup of aguardente and a little bit of broa (corn-bread) to be had.