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This is the story of a small Romanesque hermitage, Sant Vicenç de Verders, which was saved from oblivion because it was recovered stone by stone before filling the Sau reservoir with water, which is currently very empty due to the effects of the drought.
The small church was moved and rebuilt, stone by stone, in 1973, from its original location in L’Esquirol, in the Osona region, to the place where it still remains today, the Can Deu de Sabadell forest, in the Vallès Occidental , where I have captured these photographs for La Vanguardia’s Readers’ Photos.
As detailed by the Fundació 1859 Caixa Sabadell, this church was erected during the second half of the 11th century (cited with security in a document in the year 1100) on the banks of the Ter river, right below the peninsula occupied by the monastery of Sant Pere de Casserres, but on the left bank, in an appendix of the municipality of Santa Maria de Corcó (Osona).
Sant Vicenç de Verders was built “to serve the parishioners of the parish that had been in the castle of Casserres, when it became the new monastery of Sant Pere and the existing church became monastic.”
The temple was built in a central point for all the parishioners, very close to the riverbed. For this reason “it was initially known by the name of Sant Vicenç sa Riera (or Sarriera).”
In the 17th century, the church, now without worship, became an annex building to the Verders farmhouse, which occupied the site of the old rectory. Since then it has been known as Sant Vicenç de Verders.
When the Sau reservoir was built in 1962, the church, converted into a warehouse for the Verders farmhouse, was submerged. A decade later, at the end of 1973 and beginning of 1974, taking advantage of the low level of the reservoir, it was dismantled stone by stone and rebuilt behind the Can Deu farmhouse in Sabadell.
The works were carried out with the financial aid of Caixa de Sabadell, under the direction of the architect Camil Pallàs, of the Barcelona Monuments Cataloging and Conservation Service.
