Village
Santa Maria de Merlès is a municipality of the Berguedà, in the province of Barcelona, with 179 inhabitants (INE 2025), although geographically it belongs to the Lluçanès region, at the western end of the Alt Ter comarca, 14 kilometres from Puig-reig. The riera de Merlès runs through the municipality and divides it into two old parishes, that of Santa Maria, attached to the diocese of Solsona, and that of Sant Martí, attached to that of Vic. It lives from dry-land farming and livestock. It preserves the Romanesque bridge of Sant Martí, the churches of Sant Pau de Pinós and Sant Miquel de Terradelles, from the 12th century, and the ruins of the castle of Marlès, from the same century. A municipality in the south of the Berguedà with various medieval fortifications and watchtowers.
Monument
A watchtower set on the eastern slope of the valley of the riera de Merlès, in the municipality of Santa Maria de Merlès, on a small rise, and declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional. Only the north-western corner and part of the south-western side of its core survive, measuring 4.80 by about 11 metres, with walls 90 centimetres thick, with well-squared ashlar that allows it to be dated to the second half of the 12th century. It has been suggested that this small territory gave its name to the future barons of Pinós and Mataplana, identifying the tower with the castle already mentioned in 1063, when it belonged to Miró Riculf, founder of the lineage; recent studies place that castle in the county of Berga, so the tower may rather have been a fortified house protecting the road and the market of the area.
Monument
The Castell de Merlès crowns a crag at 588 metres above sea level, on the left bank of the riera de Merlès, in the Berguedà, and gives its name to the municipality of Santa Maria de Merlès. Already documented in the year 893, in the act of consecration of the church of Santa Maria de Merlès, it predates the 10th-century reorganisation of the counties; around 955 its jurisdiction was divided between the counties of Osona-Manresa and Berga. It passed through the Portella, Fenollet and Agulló families, until the last of these sold the barony to the crown in 1611. Today only ruins remain, among them a stretch of wall 6.80 metres long and up to 5 metres high, with ashlar laid in courses and a central arrow slit.
Monument
La Guaita de Pregones, declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional, is more a farmhouse with a tower than an isolated tower: the house is documented since 1187 and the present building was raised between 1776 and 1779, with the square-plan tower and four-sided roof as its oldest part, to which the two-storey farmhouse was attached. At the entrance an inscription can be read that sums up its history: “Guaita de Pregones Feudal, en el pregon del Bosc s'alça, segles del Vell Esperit Pairal, fet d'Amor i d'Esperança”. The main façade has a porch with round arches on the ground floor and galleries on the two upper storeys; it was restored by its owners in 1979.
Monument
La Cortada dels Llucs is a farmhouse in Santa Maria de Merlès (Berguedà), declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional. It has a rectangular plan with a gabled roof and is flanked by a massive tower of medieval origin, reinforced with small turrets; its doors are voussoired and the windows have solid lintels, and the whole compound is surrounded by a wall. It is a 17th-century farmhouse enlarged in the 18th, belonging to the Cortada family of Vic; in 1714 the heiress of the house married Josep d'Oriola, uniting two great estates. Next to the farmhouse stands the chapel of Santa Magdalena de la Cortada dels Llucs, of square plan and four-sided roof, built of well-carved ashlar; the inscription on its doorway dates the work to 1557 and its renovation to 1890.
Nature
A wooded valley in the south of the Berguedà, crossed by the riera de Merlès, a 47-kilometre watercourse that rises at 1,150 metres altitude and runs from north to south through the municipalities of Sant Jaume de Frontanyà, Les Llosses, Borredà, La Quar, Lluçà, Sagàs, Santa Maria de Merlès and Puig-reig, before flowing into the Llobregat at 328 metres altitude. Its basin covers 173 km². In the lower stretch, Aleppo pine, oaks and holm oaks predominate; in the middle and upper zones, Scots pine, hazels and beech woodland, while ash, elm, grey willow and willow grow on the riverbank. Since 1987 it has been declared a partial nature reserve and included in the Plan of Areas of Natural Interest.