Castell Nou is the most emblematic symbol of Llinars. It was awarded national cultural heritage site status in 1983 and is considered one of Catalonia’s finest Renaissance palaces. The castle, which was completed in 1558, has a square floor plan and is built around a central courtyard. The main façade bears the coat of arms of the Barons of Corbera.
The Barons of Corbera were already living in the village of Llinars when, in 1448, an earthquake destroyed the Castell del Far, today known as Castell Vell. That castle, which had previously been used only as a hunting lodge and place for celebrations, had all the furnishings of a home, as well as a chapel, stables and prison. Exactly one hundred years after the earthquake, Riambau de Corbera i Santcliment, Baron of Llinars, gathered the village’s heads of household together to ask for help in building a new stronghold or castle. The villagers agreed to pay one thousand pounds for seven years, starting in 1550.
The Renaissance-style Castell Nou was designed as a residential palace. It featured four bulwarks on the ground floor and four corner turrets on the top floor. These defensive elements were removed at the end of the Carlist Wars, except the two bulwarks on the northern façade.
The castle has a square floor plan, is twenty-seven metres wide and is comprised of two storeys and an attic. Above the broad voussoirs is the coat of arms of the Barons of Corbera, held by two lions, with five crows, the bust of a bearded warrior in a helmet and the date the castle was completed, 1558.
Inside the main gate we find the main hall, followed by the courtyard with the porticoes and staircase. The first floor is home to the living quarters’ magnificent arched gallery and the two-storey-high great hall, with a roughhewn coffered ceiling. On the walls of the hall, just beneath the ceiling, hang a series of exceptional secular paintings of the coat of arms of the Barons of Corbera and thirty-two ovals with different themes: six coats of arms of lineages that married into the family; the twelve months of the year, with their name in Catalan, sign of the zodiac and corresponding agricultural tasks; seven planets with astrological signs; and finally the seven theological and cardinal virtues.
Castell Nou passed into private hands in 1877 and was later purchased by the Llinars del Vallès Municipal Council in November 2018.