Casaramona mill: This cotton mill was built between 1911 and 1912 to designs by the architect, historianand nationalist politician Josep Puig i Cadafalch. It closed soon after the general collapse of the textile trade when the 1914/18 war ended, and became a police station until its recent conversion by a local cultural foundation. It occupies one whole il·la, the island block of the Cerdà plan for extending Barcelona beyond its ancient walls, and the dimensions of which determined a whole class of factory in the city. The two sheds of the factory, of brick with iron columns and Catalan vaults, are camouflaged by an elaborate neo-Gothic decoration that reminds one curiously of the Houses of Parliament in London.

Cercs coal mine museum and miners’settlement.

Coal was mined in this area for copper and iron forges since the late C18, but the first proper mines only opened in the 1850s. The difficult geology and serious problems transporting the coal out of the mountains and to the market hampered mining until a Basque industrial group bought the rail concessions and mining rights in 1995, and the railway reached Guardiola in 1904. A complex of cableways, inclined planes and rail lines brought the coal from the various workings to the railhead. Under José Enrique Olano, 53 concessions were consolidated into the firm Carbones de Berga, and mining colonies were built to accommodate the miners who began arriving from all over Spain. The area experienced boom conditions during the First World War, but it was always a centre of political activity and confrontation. One of Spain’s few communist revolts was crushed by the army in 1932, the mines were collectivized during the Civil War, and the area was a hiding place for political refugees afterwards. Hard conditions were exacerbated by the stringent economic control of the companies, and gas explosions caused several tragedies. Demand for coal was dominated by the power station, built in 1929, which bought the mine company in 1965.

Photograph by Susan Martin.