All these additions were made to the west of the existing buildings, and to make room for them Dom João had to buy several houses and gardens, which together formed a suburb called São Martinho, and some of which were the property of João de Castilho, who received for them 463
000 or about £100.[150]
These great additions, which took quite twenty-five years to build, cover an immense area, measuring more than 300 feet long by 300 wide and containing five cloisters. Immediately to the west of the Coro of the church, then probably scarcely finished, is the small cloister of Sta. Barbara; to the north of this is the larger Claustro da Hospedaria, begun about 1539, while to the south and hiding the lower part of the Coro is the splendid two-storied Claustro, miscalled 'dos Filippes,' begun in its present form in 1557 by Diogo de Torralva some time after de Castilho's death.
Further west are two other large cloisters, do Mixo or da Micha to the north and dos Corvos to the south, and west of the Corvos a sort of farmyard called the Pateo dos Carrascos—that is of the evergreen oaks, or since Carrasco also means a hangman, it may be that the executioners of the Inquisition had their quarters there.
Between these cloisters, and dividing the three on the east from the two on the west, is an immense corridor nearly three hundred feet long from which small cells open on each side; in the centre it is crossed by another similar corridor stretching over one hundred and fifty feet to the west, separating the two western cloisters, and with a small chapel to the east.
North of all the cloisters are more corridors and rooms extending eastwards almost to the Templars' castle, but there the outer face dates mostly from the seventeenth century or later.
The first part to be begun was the Claustro da Micha, or loaf, so called from the bread distributed there to the poor. Outside it was begun in 1528, but inside an inscription over the door says it was begun in 1534 and finished in 1546. Being the kitchen cloister it is very plain, with simple round-headed arches. Only the entrance door is adorned with a Corinthian column on either side; its straight head rests on well-carved corbels, and above it is a large inscribed tablet upheld by small boys.
Under the pavement of the cloister as well as under the Claustro dos Corvos is a great cistern. On the south was the kitchen and the oil cellar, on the east the dispensary, and on the west a great oven and wood-store with three large halls above, which seem to have been used by the Inquisition.[151] The lodgings of the Dom Prior were above the cloister to the north.