Cradle of the Human Castles
Valls, capital of the Alt Camp comarca, is the cradle of the castellers. It was in this town that the castellero groups first appeared early in the 19th century. For many decades, Valls was virtually the only town where this magnificent cultural manifestation was practised. As groups from Valls started to tour regularly other Catalonian towns and cities, affection for it quickly took root over all Catalonia. Now that the phenomenon of the human castles is a firmly consolidated fact in Catalonian lands, Valls continues to have in the Plaça del Blat its epicentre: both of its groups are still functioning and continue to rank among the best in the country.
Valls is the cradle of the human castles. In order to track the origins of this tradition, deeply embedded in the town of Valls, one must hark back to the end of the 18th century, and rummage among other popular expressions, such as the dances and the short farces (entremeses). But the actual genesis of these castles is to be found in the final "torreta" or turret of Valencian dances, a primitive castle that would evolve into the popular manifestation that we know today, and that appeared for the first time in Valls, where the existence of two rival "colles" or groups of castellers has been documented.
And that is the reason why this town is considered to be the cradle of the human castles. Very gradually, the castles began to impose themselves by their own sheer force until they became the undisputed protagonists at country fairs in Tarragona and the Penedès during the second half of the 19th century.
