Sant Celoni

Sant Celoni is a municipality of Vallès Oriental that stands out for its privileged geographical location.

The municipality, 64.4 km² in area, consists of two urban centers, mainly: Sant Celoni, the most populated (16,359 inhabitants, 10-02-2016) and La Batllòria (1,328 inhabitants, 10-02-2016), about 5 kilometers northeast. The municipality also includes Vilardell, Sant Martí de Montnegre, Olzinelles and Fuirosos, nuclei of the Montnegre area that in the past had constituted municipalities with different grouping formulas.

Halfway between the provinces of Barcelona and Girona and very well connected both by road and by rail, Sant Celoni has become a reference municipality of the Baix Montseny and is one of the main entry gates to the Montseny Natural Park and the Montnegre Park and the Corridor, natural spaces of great richness and scenic beauty.

Sant Celoni offers visitors a rich cultural, natural and gastronomic heritage and a wide variety of nature routes with alternatives for all types of public.

History

The first Celonins lived in scattered houses grouped around the parish of San Martí de Pertegàs. In the eleventh century the lords of Montseny ordered the construction of a chapel dedicated to Sant Celoni at the foot of the royal road from Barcelona to Girona.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century there were already 72 fires or houses, and by the middle of the 14th century the population was approaching a thousand inhabitants. In 1370 the hospitalarios approved the ordinances of good government, some of the first in Catalonia, demonstrating the strength and good organization of the town. In 1405 Sant Celoni became the property of the Cabrera, who completed their domains in Montseny.

During the Middle Ages the town of Sant Celoni was in the hands of the Hospitalers of Sant Joan de Jerusalem. The fortified city is what we know today as the neighborhood of the Force. The economy of Sant Celoni was governed mainly by crafts and the market, where all the surrounding villages found tools and tools necessary to cultivate the land. This is demonstrated by the existing trades in the town: cloth merchants, merchants, weavers, vanovers and manteros, wool combs, tailors, shoemakers, tanners, tanners, basters, carpenters, blacksmiths, millers, bakers, butchers...

The importance of wool and linen weavers led to the birth of the textile industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, also favored by the arrival of the railroad in 1860. The relief in this vitality, traditionally linked to trade, agriculture and livestock, has been taken up by the considerable industrial implantation, which occurred essentially during the 20th century, which has been built up in recent years as the main engine of the local economy, complemented by the dynamism of the commercial sector and the strength of services.