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Half a century ago, the English historian W. G. Hoskins said, “the current landscape is the best historical document that has been preserved.” This statement, which may seem a little exaggerated, allows us to point out the importance that the historical landscape can have, if we want to understand certain stages of our history.
For a few years now I have been interested in what we all call emptied Spain. But I think perhaps we should say: “There is not an emptied Spain but a forgotten Spain.”
The historian Jordi Bolòs Masclans and professor of medieval history wrote: “Only that which has a use and is used throughout the centuries lasts over time.”
From this window offered by La Vanguardia’s Readers’ Photos, I am going to start a series of reports about the abandoned towns that were once uninhabited. I have to thank Faustino Calderón who, after almost two years of trying to participation, I have finally obtained their consent to use their photos.
Faustino has been traveling throughout the national territory for more than three decades in search of uninhabited towns, passionate and in love with its ruins and admirer of a way of life that is gone and will not return, countless kilometers walked and more than a thousand towns visited, He is the creator of the blog: lospueblosdeshabitados.
Currently, in Spain there are more than 2,000 towns and if the different administrations do not provide any remedy, in a few years we will surely see twice as many towns in these circumstances.
I am going to start with a town that is not in the interior of the provinces of Teruel or Soria, to give just one example, but is in the same province of Barcelona, ??only 120 kilometers from the Catalan capital, that is, one hour and average by vehicle, it seems unlikely that an abandoned town exists so close to the city.
Peguera was a quiet and peaceful mountain town in Alt Berguedà and is now completely abandoned; it is currently apart from the municipality of Fígols.
More than a century ago, it was a town like any other dedicated to agriculture and livestock. Later, three coal mines were opened (Pepita, Eureka and Moreta), all of which brought strong growth and services to Peguera.
It was precisely the bankruptcy of mining and forestry exploitation that led to the departure of the town’s inhabitants, as they did not have water or electricity, as well as the fact of being at 1,630 meters above sea level, being one of the highest towns in Catalonia.
Peguera Castle is a border castle documented in 1098 in the municipality of Fígols (Bergadá). It is a work declared Cultural Property of National Interest. It is located at the highest part of the Roc de Peguera, at the foot of which are the uninhabited houses of the village of Peguera.
The oldest documentation is from the second half of the 11th century. Between 1068 and 1095, a certain Pere Ramón, who acted as a castellan, swore an oath of fidelity to Count William Ramón I of Cerdanya for the castles and possessions of Peguera, Fígols, Vallmanyana and Berga, among others.
In 1095, Count William of Cerdanya made a will and bequeathed to his son Bernard William all his possessions in Bergadá and its brand, including the castle of Peguera. The new count, due to breach of agreement by Pere Ramón, took the possessions from him and transferred them to Berenguer Ecard (1098). In 1117 the county of Cerdaña was integrated with that of Barcelona and Guillermo Ramón de Berga, heir of Ecard, paid tribute to Ramón Berenguer III for the castle of Peguera, among others. Guillermo Ramón’s son, Pere de Berga, in 1171 donated the castle to the monastery of Santa María de Poblet del Puerto de Peguera, with Ramón de Peguera being a feudatory.
In the year 1305, Bernat de Peguera was still titled, señor del castillo de Peguera. In 1390, King Juan I of Aragon sold all the jurisdiction of the castle to Ramón de Peguera who made a donation to Galceran Galceran de Pinós. The castle of Peguera was to be integrated within the barony of Pinós.
At the beginning of the 17th century, it can be read in a memorial intended for the king that Peguera Castle was a possession of Francisco de Agulló, a family that had blood from the Pinós. The instability in the 17th century, marked by epidemics, migration and banditry, had a strong impact on the population; the commitment to diversification of crops in the 18th century, together with livestock farming, was key.
The population reached 174 inhabitants, this period of prosperity is what can be seen today, the ruins of the houses built at the time.
At the top of Roc de Peguera, there are very few remains of this ancient and lofty Bergadá castle. Some wall fragments seem to show that it was a small castle; perhaps a simple strong tower, defensive outpost of the nearby castle of Fígols. When the fortress collapsed, the local inhabitants had to use the stones to build the houses of Peguera.
Peguera was a quiet and pleasant town in Alt Berguedà, until the arrival at the end of the 19th century when it found itself sharing prominence and presence with a major mining project.
It should be noted that, in 1908, some members of the Center Excursionista de Catalunya (CEC), suggested the idea of ??trying out snow sports in Catalonia, to put skiing into practice in Peguera, they sent sleds, skis from Zurich , snowshoes and other winter sports equipment, at the end of December they start skiing, becoming the first ski practice in Spain.
In a house in the town called Cal Peró, Ramón Vila Capdevila, better known as “Caracremada”, was born. A famous maqui, who fought alone in the mountains, in the Sierra del Cadí and the Catalan Pyrenees, accompanied by a pistol. The entire Civil Guard of Berga and Manresa were looking for him to arrest him. The nickname “Caracremada” was given to him because when he was a child and lived in Peguera, he had the habit of going with his mother to pick almonds, but one fateful day, a storm hit them and lightning struck his mother, he He saw everything since he was at his side.
From the accident he was left with marks on his face from the burns caused by lightning and a sad regret for the loss of his mother. In 1963 he died in an ambush, when there was hardly any maquis activity in Spain, becoming the last Catalan maquis.
Almost the entire area of ??Peguera and the mining industry colony was owned by Manuel Arumi, but in the 1930s they passed into the hands of the Olano family, known as the Counts of Figols. Three mines were opened for coal extraction, for which a whole system of facilities was created around them. All of this brought strong demographic and service growth to the end of Peguera.
Although the inhabitants of the town were not affected by the change, since they continued to lead a life as they had always done. None of them were going to work in the mine, they were almost all people from other parts of the country. The only contact they could have was that young people who had to perform military service could be exempt from said service by working during that time in the mine.
It was good for the young people because they could stay close to home and for the mine also because it had cheap labor and did not have to give them salaries or accommodation. Its considerable altitude, 1640 meters, one of the highest towns in Catalonia and Spain, gives an idea of ??the harsh winters they endured in those years.
There were 40 homes that were dedicated to livestock, with cows as the primary animal, and to agriculture, mainly growing potatoes and, to a lesser extent, wheat and peas. The Peguera potatoes were very famous, which they took to sell in Berga, to earn extra income.
With the decline of the mines, the counts of Fígols no longer wanted to maintain the town and were offered work in the Vallcebre mines to anyone who wanted to leave.
People no longer saw a future in a town that was poorly connected and lacked all the services that would have been necessary to continue surviving in Peguera and they began to abandon it, moving towards Berga, Navàs, Vallcebre, Manresa or Barcelona.
And what happened to Peguera in the meantime? Despite the inauguration of the ski slope, the municipality faced financial problems in the late 1920s. In 1928, mining activity, one of the economic drivers, ended. Forest exploitation resisted, but only until the 1930s.
Demographically, Peguera began to depopulate in the 1950s, going from 70 inhabitants to 26 in 1960. By 1965, only three inhabitants remained, and in 1968 the last house was closed, Pedro Freixa and his wife Rosa Sanchez de Cal Penjorell, followed by the desecration of the church of Sant Martí, marking the end of life in Peguera.
After many years of abandonment and oblivion. In October 2003, a billionaire sheikh arrived in Peguera and bought the entire Peguera area, 1,400 hectares. The site was purchased by the Arab Sheikh Butti Bin Maktoum Bin Juma al-Maktoum to create a luxury tourist complex that includes the entire town and the former Miners’ Canteen.
The people of the region mobilized and created the Salvem Peguera Platform to prevent what could be an attempt at uncontrolled urban exploitation in a place of great landscape and archaeological importance.
One thing has been clearly evident, either the sheikh or whoever advised him to buy the town knew that the place is of incomparable beauty. His patience is as great as his name. Sheikh Butti Bin Maktoum Bin Juma el Maktoum does not want disputes, especially with the locals who will one day be his neighbors. The Arab millionaire, a member of the Al Maktoum family, which has ruled the United Arab Emirates since 1830, bought the abandoned town of Peguera and the lands that surround it for 3.6 million euros.
But a long administrative journey and the resistance of a farmer to abandon the land have prevented, until now, the culmination of his dream of rebuilding the houses and revitalizing the area with a rural tourism project. whose administrator is the German Harald Kuspert, one of the main falcon breeders in Europe from his farm in Odén (Solsonés), he knows the sheikh because he is a regular buyer of his birds of prey who was the one who showed the Arab sheikh the lands from which this one would fall in love.
Some toponyms of common places in Peguera that will remain forever in the memories of the people who lived in the town: Bagua de Pequera, Barranc dels Graus, Cami de Feners, Cami de Cal Salamo, Gingles de Graell, Coll de Salamo, El Ferrus, El Tossal, Els Planells, Font de la Bruixa, Font de la Cauma, Font de la Plana, Font del Cingle, Font del Terrer, Pla de les Basses, Serrat de las Eras, Solana de Peguera.
Today, the town lies abandoned. Turned into a pile of ruins due to the demolition of buildings by owners seeking to avoid taxes and sell tiles, the image is desolate.
The only area that remained in good condition was the set of Cantina buildings, used for summer camps between 1956 and 1978. The difficult living conditions and the altitude of more than 1,630 meters were determining factors in the abandonment of the town.
