Cultural Environment
Casa de la Senyoria
and Torre de Pardines
This monumental complex was declared an Asset of Cultural Interest in 2001. It consists of two elements, the Manor House of the Counts of Olocau and the Tower of Pardines.
The Pardines Tower dates back to the 13th century, it was part of the Castillo de al-Uqab surveillance and defense system and defended a small Islamic farmhouse whose inhabitants maintained it.
It is in the fourteenth century when we have the first references of the construction of a house around the tower by the Vilaragut family, using the tower as part of the new house of the lord. After this remodeling, it became the administrative center of the barony of Olocau, replacing the Castillo del Real, which gradually lost its function as the backbone of the lordship.
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From the XVII century the barony will become a county since the title of count is granted to Alonso de Vilaragut i pardo de la Casta, for the services rendered to King Felipe IV. But it was the Fenollet family who built the current house due to the deterioration of the old one as a result of the great earthquakes of the 18th century, which destroyed part of this house and the Tower of Pardines.
In the year 1796 the construction of the new manor house was finished, being counts of Olocau Didác de Fenollet and Sinforosa Crespí de Valldaura. It became the new control center of their lands and the place where they spent their rest periods. In 1805 the Countess carried out important renovations that left the house as it is today. Among them, the construction of the wine press and the cellar with a spectacular vaulted vault stands out.
Today it belongs to the municipality and has been restored to make it visitable, housing Tourist info, wine cellar, oil mill, rooms of the counts, the Museographic Collection of Puntal dels Llops and temporary exhibition hall.
The county will pass from the Crespí de Valldaura family to the Zaforteza de Mussoles, from Palma de Mallorca. The latter will sell the house in 1959 to the descendants of the last proxy, Lluis Romero i Agustí, farmers who cultivated the lands of the direct domain of the counts.
In 1998 the City Council of Olocau bought the whole complex and since then rehabilitation works have been carried out. The last of them has been the excavation and rehabilitation of the Tower of Pardines and the old water tank of the town built in 1900 and now converted into a temporary exhibition hall.
