Village
Les Llosses is a mountain municipality in the Ripollès district, situated south-west of Ripoll, between the Merlès stream and the Ter river. With 197 inhabitants and 114 km², it is the largest in area in the district, and it brings together former municipalities such as Palmerola, annexed in 1991, and Viladonja, in 1974, along with others such as Sant Martí de Vinyoles and Santa Maria de Matamala. The local coat of arms, bearing ladles -llosses in Catalan- as canting arms, recalls that from the 11th century the village was the centre of the barony of La Guàrdia de Ripoll, acquired by the monastery of Ripoll in 1363, represented by the crosier on the shield. Settlement is scattered; the only clustered settlement is the colony of La Farga de Bebié, shared with Montesquiu. It lives from livestock farming and, increasingly, from rural tourism.
Monument
The castle of Palmerola, a fortified house already recorded in 1227 and much transformed between the 13th and 15th centuries, was restored in 1973 in neo-medieval style with a large crenellated tower that today defines its image. Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (BCIN 376-MH; Catalonia's highest level of cultural heritage protection). It stands at 1,095 metres of altitude, atop a small hill near the road between Borredà and Les Llosses, and belonged successively to the lineages of la Portella and Pinós. In 1437 it was almost entirely rebuilt, after having fallen into such ruin that only sheep inhabited it, and in 1767 Charles III granted its owners the title of Marquis of Palmerola.
Monument
The church of Santa Maria de Matamala, in the settlement of the same name, in the municipality of Les Llosses (Ripollès), is of Romanesque origin: it is already documented from the year 888, although it was rebuilt in the 12th century. From the 17th century onwards it was completely enlarged, with the nave extended by a presbytery that replaced the old apse, and with the addition of two side chapels -one dated 1735-, an attic and a new, massive tower-type bell tower, with a large window on each face of the upper floor. In the second chapel on the south side an 18th-century image of Our Lady of the Rosary, known as the Virgin of Moreta, is preserved.
Monument
Romanesque church from the 11th-12th centuries attached to the Riba farmhouse, with a single nave and a slightly pointed vault, an apse facing east, a doorway on the south side and a small bell tower at the south-west corner. In the 9th century Count Bernat of Cerdanya donated the church to the monastery of Ripoll, a donation confirmed in 1080; the present building dates from the 12th century. It retains five windows, four with stained glass depicting the four seasons with their names in Latin, and above the apse a painted chrismon surrounded by a floral wreath. It was fully restored by its owner, Moisès Torrents, around the 1960s, who obtained its deconsecration through the courts; the Baroque altarpiece it once held was later sold and is no longer kept in the church.
Monument
Sant Esteve de Vallespirans is a place in the municipality of Les Llosses which had around 120 inhabitants in the mid-19th century and 53 in 2023, all of them in scattered settlement. Its church, dedicated to Saint Stephen, is of 12th-century Romanesque origin, although it was substantially altered in the 18th century, when the apse was replaced by a rectangular presbytery and a new doorway dated 1759 was opened; it retains a low, massive bell tower and is surrounded by the cemetery precinct.
Monument
A former parish church at 989 metres above sea level, at the bottom of the Estiula valley and to the left of the stream, on the site of the rural settlement of Estívola which Wilfred the Hairy donated to the monastery of Ripoll before the year 890. The original 11th-century building was completely transformed in 1731, when the nave was lengthened and raised and a bell tower and two side chapels were added. It was first dedicated to Sant Pere, from the 13th century shared its dedication with Sant Feliu, and from the 18th century onwards was dedicated to the latter alone. Beside the church stands the old rectory, now converted into a meeting house for the parish of Campdevànol. A document in the archive of La Pobla de Lillet mentions Ramon Pinosa as rector of the parish in 1354.
Monument
Sant Julià de Cosp is a Romanesque church perched on a crag of the Catllaràs mountain range, in the Palmerola sector, within the municipality of Les Llosses. It has a single nave separated from the semicircular apse by two triumphal arches, with a pointed barrel vault, a two-bell bell-gable on the west side, windows with double splays and a doorway with two eroded arches opening to the south. The place is documented from the year 905, although the church itself is not mentioned until 1140, by which time it was already a parish on which three farmsteads depended, very isolated because of the rugged terrain. Today, deconsecrated, it serves as a barn for the transhumant flocks that graze the surrounding meadows in summer.
Monument
Small parish church in the Palmerola sector, with a rectangular nave facing east, an attached sacristy, a doorway on the south side and a bell-gable at the north-west corner. The church is already mentioned in the year 839, when it was the parish church of the district of Palmerola castle, although the right of patronage was not fixed until 1014; in the 14th century the depopulation of the area reduced the parish to the surrounding farmsteads: Moreta, la Vinyassa, el Molí de Moreta and les Gases. The rendered walls still reveal the stone lintels of the doorway, which opens onto the south façade and may belong to the original construction. It currently remains closed and in a state of disrepair.
Monument
This single-nave church, already mentioned in 905 as a dependency of Sant Jaume de Frontanyà, stands in the middle of a meadow, on a small rise. Its apse was replaced in the 17th century by the present rectangular presbytery, taking advantage of the repopulation and prosperity of the region; in that same renovation the doorway was moved from its original location on the south façade to the west façade, where it stands today, and on the south side there must have stood the rectory, now gone. Abandoned after the depopulation of the 19th century, it retains its bell-gable, but its vault and south wall are in ruins. The place of Corrubí has also long been known by the names Quero Rubio and Querrubí.
Monument
Sant Martí de Vinyoles de Portavella is a church with Romanesque and Baroque elements located south-east of the sanctuary of Santa Margarida, in the municipality of Les Llosses, in the Ripollès, at 1,020 metres above sea level and near the old manor house of Portavella. It is documented from the year 925, although the present building, with later additions, dates from the 12th century; from that period survive a small voussoired doorway, two eroded arches and the nave with its Romanesque vault. In 1703 two side chapels were added, and shortly afterwards a bell tower was built over the old apse, along with a sacristy and new chapels, with an interior covered in plaster mouldings. Today the church is abandoned and deconsecrated.
Monument
The church of Sant Vicenç de Palmerola stands, almost isolated, on a small hill beside the ruins of the old manorial castle of Palmerola, in the municipality of Les Llosses; the present-day parish church of the place, by contrast, was built further down in the valley. The church, included in the Inventory of Architectural Heritage of Catalonia, together with its dependency Sant Julià de Palmerola, are, according to the historian Monsalvatge, the only two churches in the province of Girona to have belonged to the diocese of Solsona. In 1398 King Martin the Humane annexed the parish of Sant Vicenç de Palmerola to the Crown, and in the 16th century the Palmerola lineage, lords of the neighbouring castle, still held the patronage of the church.
Monument
Church in Les Llosses (Ripollès), located at the southern end of the municipality, at 1,012 metres above sea level. The present building was erected in the 18th century on the base of an earlier Romanesque church, from which it retains the layout of the nave, enlarged with a sacristy and side chapels; it has a small tower-type bell tower with a pyramidal roof on the south side, to which an entrance vestibule was added in 1802. Beside it stands the cemetery precinct. It is included in the Inventory of Architectural Heritage of Catalonia.
Monument
The church of Santa Maria de les Llosses, of 12th-century Romanesque origin, stands in the middle of the Les Llosses valley, in the Ripollès, atop a small hill, serving as the parish church for a group of scattered houses. It is a single-nave building, covered by a pointed barrel vault and closed at the east end by a semicircular apse with three double-splayed windows, decorated on the outside with Lombard blind arcades; inside, the walls were altered to open three chapels within the thickness of the masonry. The sacristy, attached on the north side, and the rectory, on the west, are of a later period. It is entered through a round-arched doorway in the south wall, above which rises the tower-type bell tower, with twin windows and a four-sided roof.
Monument
Castle, also called la Guàrdia de Ripoll, situated below the hermitage of Santa Margarida de Vinyoles, in the municipality of Les Llosses. It was a former castle with its own district, documented since the year 1017, whose jurisdiction included the present-day municipalities of Alpens, in the Lluçanès, and Les Llosses, in the Ripollès; it formed part of the county of Besalú and belonged to the Guàrdia or Saguàrdia family, known since 1061. In 1270 the lord of the castle was Galceran de Pinós, whose descendants took the surname Guàrdia and obtained the viscountcy of Canet and the barony of la Guàrdia. It has been an Asset of National Cultural Interest since 1988 (BCIN 1837-MH).
Monument
The Roca de Baborers is a rock formation in the municipality of Les Llosses, in the Ripollès, where the remains of the castle of Baborers stand, documented since 1242. On the crag known as el Roquer, at 945 metres above sea level, a tower and stretches of wall survive, now partly covered by vegetation. The stronghold belonged to the Pinós family and passed in 1277 to Ponç de la Guàrdia; in 1356 Bernat III de Cabrera handed it over to the king. A will from 1324 mentions the chapel of Sant Salvador de Babotes, linked to the castle. The complex has been declared an asset of cultural interest since 1988.
Monument
Fortified manor house of the hamlet of Sant Martí de Vinyoles, in the municipality of Les Llosses, dating originally from the 14th century, although the defensive tower that distinguishes it is already mentioned, in the 12th century, in a document from 1140. It is a rectangular building with a ground floor and two upper floors attached to the tower, which is rectangular in plan and five storeys high with later alterations; on the first floor a large hall opens, from which the doors to the main chambers lead off, and on the ground floor, inside the stables, a hiding place is concealed, reached through a trapdoor hidden beneath the straw. The name Portavella may come from the fact that the old access door to the tower was rendered unusable when the manor house was built against it, and it remains today walled up in the entrance hall. It now operates as a rural guesthouse, about 14 kilometres from Ripoll.