Route through Susqueda

We propose a visit to the municipality of Susqueda where we will enter the heritage of the small municipality and we will learn about its origins and secrets.

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In 1963, taking advantage of the gorge that formed the river between the Montdois and San Benito mountain ranges, and with the intention of producing electricity and guaranteeing the water supply in Girona and Barcelona, work began on the Susqueda reservoir, which was completed in 1967. the hydroelectric plant entered service in 1968.

The reservoir buried under the waters the town of Susqueda and the lands and farmhouses of the valleys of Susqueda and Querós. The demographic ceiling was reached in the 1857 census with 998 souls, which would be reduced to 98 at the end of 2017

The starting point is not easy to find, until the tiny nucleus that currently centers the municipality of Susqueda, where the parish church of Sant Martí Sacalm is (835m above sea level) in the shadow of the Lighthouse.

It is a sober building, with a rectangular nave, with a low arch door, a porthole, a triangular pediment and a square tower bell tower, with four arches, at midday. The entrance door, framed in stone and with a monolithic lintel, stands out for the stone decoration in the form of pinnacles, the plant decoration, a monolithic shell-shaped niche - currently no image - and the inscriptions Jesus and Mary and the date of 1786.

In the construction of the façade of the church, two evolutionary phases are well appreciated, since the roof took off. That is why there are two portholes, one made of stone and the other made of brick. On the side facades there are three portholes framed with tile as openings in the upper part, before the roof.

On the south side of the church is the old rectory, currently inhabited, and in front of the church door is the parish cemetery.

They told me - the current occupants are originally from Lloret and Blanes - that the building housed the school, the teacher, the bell ringer, and the rector of Sant Martí Sacalm.

The church has the name "Cantaluporum" or "Cantalobs" in the medieval lists of the diocese of Vic, to which it belongs, since before 1150. Its name is changing, thus in 1197 it is called "Sancti Martini de Cantalupis "or" Sancti Martini de Calmus "in 1198.

In the archive of the Curia Ahumada de Vic is the testament of Pedro Santiago el de Berenguer de Sesqueions (from Mas Esqueions near La Jaça, in Rupit) of the parish of San Martín, which he testified on August 25, 1269 on the occasion of a trip to Jerusalem and that, among others, two salaries in the church of San Martín de Cantallops and its rector.

In 1332, the court of Pope John XXII in Avignon issued a bull with indulgences called "Las perdonanses de Nuestra Señora del Faro" (16th century copy preserved in the Diocesan Archives of Vic) in which it is stated that the church had iris altars , Santiago and Santa Fe.

He portrayed her from the sanctuary of El Far, on the border of the regions of La Selva, Garrotxa and Osona.

We would like to hear about the meaning of the Susqueda toponym. The place name refers us (in terms of the suffix eda) to a group of plants; here we have the license to let our imagination fly: the willow tree - a tree typical of humid places - would give us Salicetum in the Latin language, we find it written as Sucheda, and from Suscado (10th century), of uncertain origin, the 'Official Gazetteer tells us of greater toponymy of Catalonia '.

Author: Antonio Mora Vergés