Built during Queen Santa Isabel reign in 1309 was then dedicated to St. Vincent  gave religious assistance to those who suffered most in the Middle Ages, lepers.
In the beginning of the 16th century the temple was built on the heritage of the Holy House of Mercy of Óbidos. From October 19 1636 until the liberalism  served as headquarters to the Parish and Collegiate Church of St. John the Baptist.

Since then the church went into a steep decline, reappearing now as a space where Art and Religious Heritage will take place with its adequate expression.

The Parish Museum of Obidos (or St. John), will be a meeting point and dialogue between the community and its roots, as well as a factor of cultural growth, articulating closely with other museum services in the Village Obidos.

The opening of this cultural facility will also serve as an incentive to the study and dissemination of the church artistic and historical heritage which  is the basis of local culture, showing it to various audiences (students, researchers, tourists, etc.) .

The museum management, whose contents will be decided by the parish priest and the technicians of the Municipal Museum, will have short duration or temporary exhibitions (between 4-9 months), justifying investigation and motivating the new periodic visits to the Museum.

This Museum was inaugurated on June 15, 1970, attended by the then President of the Republic, Admiral Américo Tomás, the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon, D. Manuel Alves Cherry and several government officials. Was its first director the then mayor, Albino de Castro and Sousa (1922-1984).

The Municipal Museum is part of the West Museum Route and is home to the Museums and Galleries Obidos Network.

Another of remote antecedents that led to the museum’s foundation is reflected from some cultural achievements in Obidos, including the Sacred Art Exhibition in 1954 and the evocation of Josefa de Obidos in 1959, producing a heightened expectation effect with the closure the “regional museum”, housed in the limited space of the Gothic chapel of St. Martin, where there was an archeology collection and architectural fragments, most belonging to Lt. Col. Luis Torquato de Freitas Garcia