Near the water tower are a couple of derelict buildings which, being a nosy ****** I had a snoop around in this morning. In what looked to have been a workshop of sorts, I found dozens and dozens of copies of a glossy brochure about a high end tourist development of 3 and 4 bedroom villas called Vista Da Águia.  There was also a folder of paperwork dated 1992. I couldn't take that but will go back for it. There was all sorts of scrap like tiles, pipes, and hundreds more cardboard boxes that would probably have held more brochures.

It never happened. There is a site plan which I fairly certain I can line up with the are beside the water tower. And some good views of the area down below before the marina was built, the view they would have enjoyed. There are schematics of the 23 villas that would have been built. I will see if I can scan them.

Developer : Sol Leisure Investments of Guernsey

Bankers : First National

Financial Advisors : Price Waterhouse

Sales and marketing was based in Vilamoura, Registered office of Portuguese subsidiary based in the Edifício Caravela in Rua Pedro Álvares Cabral behind the town hall.

Do any of the old hands know anything about it?

The folder I found contained a year's worth of documents from early 1991 to early 1992. Luckily for the historian, everything was done by fax in those days. (What's a fax grandad?)

Although many of those printed on thermal paper have faded out, there are enough originals and other papers to get a gist of what was planned.

It all was going to look very grand, up by the water tower. Of the 23 plots, 8 were listed as being 'phase 1'. Phase 1 plots were around 1,000 sq metres. The four bedroom villas were priced at £425,000, a three bedroom option at £375,000. Seems extravagant, this is more than thirty years ago. Indicative prices for plots in phase 2, without structures, were given as £300,000. The showhouse was to be offered for sale (after having done its job) for £250,000.

All villas would have had a pool of course. A tennis court is in the plans. I need to check a bit more to see if the three or four properties that now exist on the site were part of the development or later builds. It does seem to me that nothing was actually built or sold, but I may be wrong.

Among the papers was what looks to me like a list of potential buyers, including Joe Dolan, Chris de Burgh, Paul Gascoigne and Ivana Trump! Although she has 'ha-ha' beside her name.

The names on most of the faxes to and from the property company are an Irish couple name of O'Carroll.