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The Dynamite Fountain, the protagonist today in La Vanguardia’s Readers’ Photos, is located in the municipality of Sant Fost de Campsentelles, in the Vallés Oriental region. It is located in the Nau forest, on the shady slope of the Sierra de Marina.
The surroundings of the Nau are a Mediterranean forest of great beauty, crossed by a torrent. The tormented hollow under the mountain forms the border with Santa María de Martorelles, it was known in medieval times as the Nau de Sant Genís or Valpanera.
On the shady NW side we find the Pedrissos and Galobre hills. On the sunny side of the torrent is the Cerro de la Nau. On the north side of the Nau road was the forest known as Les Gaies, an area appreciated before urbanization for finding many mushrooms.
The forest is made up of pines, holm oaks, cork oaks, strawberry trees, oaks and hazelnut trees. Among the fauna species, birds, squirrels, rabbits, wild boars, deer and foxes stand out.
La Nau is an ideal place to enjoy nature. The space offers numerous possibilities for hiking, cycling and observing fauna and flora.
The fountain gets its name from an old dynamite factory that was located nearby. In addition to the dynamite factory. There was a house, a mill, the drying rooms, buildings separate from the factory to process material and make black powder.
There is still debris among the ivies. The fountain is of natural origin and springs from a granite rock. The Dinamita factory came into operation in 1883. The owners were Messrs. Tarruella and Berch.
They made gunpowder with oak charcoal, saltpeter and sulfur, which they later transformed into detonators, cartridges, firecrackers, and fireworks.
During its operation it suffered several explosions with the loss of human lives. The explosions had some coverage in the press at the time.
It was published in La Vanguardia on February 25, 1885, that during the morning of February 20, 1885, the factory had suffered an explosion. Later, on June 6, 1893, the same newspaper published the news of another explosion.
The different explosions caused the death of several workers. Their bodies were found a few kilometers from the place and caused various considerable damages to the factory, the remains were scattered throughout the forest. The explosion was caused by an error in the dynamite manufacturing process.
The Sant Fost factory in Campsentelles produced a wide variety of fireworks to commemorate the opening of the Barcelona Universal Exhibition: including rockets and sparklers.
They were designed by the pyrotechnic master José María Aranda. The fireworks were a very important event for Barcelona at the time. They were held on the night of May 20, 1888. And they were seen by more than 100,000 people. The factory ceased operations in the early 1900s.
The legend also tells the story of a ghost that appears at night in the forest, near the Dynamite Fountain. The ghost is a tall, thin man, his face covered in soot, he is wearing a work suit from the dynamite factory.
It is the spirit of a worker from the old dynamite factory who died in the explosion of 1884. The ghost is said to wander the forest looking for his dead colleagues. The ghost is sad and lonely, and his appearance is a reminder of the tragedy that shocked the residents of Sant Fost de Campsentelles.
