Dovecot tower for messenger pigeons in the village of Alins (High Pyrenees, Catalonia).
Alins is located in the Vall Ferrera valley, which been one of the most important locations in the Pyrenees mountains for extraction of iron since the Early Middle Ages. In fact, the valley's name in the Catalan language means "Iron Valley".
To communicate the "Iron Valley" with other points of Catalonia who bought their iron, they used messenger pigeons. The dovecot in the photos was originally built in the Middle Ages and reformed in the 17th and 18th centuries. It's known that messenger pigeons were used to communicate the valley with Tarragona (city in the south of Catalonia that used iron from this valley to build its harbour), which is 220 km away. This tower has also been used as a conjuratory (a kind of tower, common in the Pyrenees, from which priests performed rituals to ward off storms).
There is also a second, older, dovecot tower in the village, called Colomer de les Bruixes (which in Catalan means "Witches' dovecot"), thought to have been built before the 13th century.
Photos by medievalismes on Instagram (also on TikTok). Information source: Inventari del Patrimoni Arquitectònic de Catalunya.
