The name of Guixaró is associated with the country house known as Casa Gran del Guixaró. The toponym is known from a 17th-century document. The heiress of this house married Francesc Guixaró, and since 1627, the house became known as Casamitjana i Guixaró. In the 19th century, due to family disputes and inheritance issues, the Guixaró family sold the house and lands to Miquel Vilanova i Marsinyach, the heir of the country house of Sierra de Cabo de Costa in Puig-reig. In 1877, he commissioned an engineer to conduct a technical study for the construction of a sluice and a canal. In 1879, Esteve Comelles i Cluet, from Berga, purchased part of the country house lands to build a cotton spinning and weaving factory. The factory was built between 1888 and 1889, and the old wooden sluice, with a small diversion canal, was built in 1895. From the outset, the factory was equipped with a turbine to transform water power into mechanical energy to drive the machinery and a steam engine to provide supplementary power during drought periods and fluctuations in the river's flow. Mr. Comelles did not limit himself to building a factory. These were the days of industrial colonies, and alongside the Guixaró factory, housing for workers and a range of services and facilities were built so that workers could have everything they needed within the colony. Another building constructed as a "service" for the workers was the church. Historically, the Guixaró church was located next to the factory, as was the director’s house. Today, a small chapel remains in the old school building. Until about thirty years ago, since the origin of the colonies, religion and the priest played a crucial role in the social order and daily life. The priest coordinated social and festive activities, acted as the owner’s vigilant eye in the colony, and spread the message that the owner was like a father to the workers, a protective figure who provided them with jobs, food, housing and services. In 1902, Esteve Comelles, the colony’s founder, died, and the colony passed to his children. In 1917, the Comelles family sold it to Joan Prat Sellés from Manresa, who, along with his partners, sold it in 1929 to Marc Viladomiu i Santmartí, the owner of Viladomiu Nou. At this point, the colony experienced a resurgence: a road was built connecting Guixaró with Viladomiu Nou, worker housing was expanded with galleries for bathrooms and laundries, a new school was inaugurated in 1932 along with a football field, and by 1935, electricity and potable water were introduced. After the Civil War, new services and facilities continued to appear: a new sluice and canal in 1942, a nursery in 1946, a library in 1948, a theatre in 1949 and new apartments in 1953. The factory’s electrical system was consolidated, and the industrial space expanded between 1948 and 1950. These improvements helped the colony gradually overcome the hardships of the post-war years. By the 1970s, signs of crisis and the decline of the textile sector and the industrial colony model became more apparent. The colony began to lose population, and traditional services such as the school and shop closed. The factory ultimately shut down in the late 1980s. After the factory closed, the resident workers were given the option to purchase their homes. Today, around forty people live permanently in Guixaró, and the factory has once again resumed industrial activity.

The Almendra de Casserres Colony, also known as the Monegal Colony, is one of the many river-based textile colonies that emerged in Catalonia during the 19th century, particularly along the River Llobregat, to harness the power of water as an energy source. It is located at the northeastern edge of the municipality of Casserres, on the right bank of the Llobregat, but close to the town of Gironella — which explains why most social and commercial relations were established with Gironella rather than with Casserres. One of the region’s main droving routes once passed through this area. The colony can be divided into three parts or levels. In the lower level, the main section of the colony, are found the weir and its canal, the factory with its warehouses, workshops, and housing for managers and workers, arranged around the main street, together with the bridge, the Quera fountain, and the gates that once closed off the colony. An iron bridge, built by La Maquinista Terrestre y Marítima, replaced an earlier wooden footbridge, although it was later swept away by flooding of the Llobregat. The middle level is structured around the upper street, where the church, convent, former priest’s house, a public washhouse, and a water tank are located. Finally, in the highest section stands the old farmhouse of L’Ametlla, with its fountain, the new owners’ tower, and the Santa Rosa flats. The arrangement of these elements was not random but followed a deliberate and logical plan. The original nucleus was established beside the river, on the site of an old mill destroyed during the Peninsular War. There the first factory was built, together with the weir, canal, and bridge. The first workers’ dwellings were located above the factory itself. As the company grew, new storage buildings and housing were added along what is now Carrer de Dalt. The structures in this area were built using stone quarried locally during the levelling of the terrain. This period marked the first organised layout of the colony, with the church, convent, priest’s house, washhouse, and other communal facilities. The second expansion, to the south, included the Main Street and the central square, where the grocery shop, inn, director’s house, and foreman’s residence were located. At the highest point stands the Masia de l’Ametlla, the ancestral home of the colony’s first owners and of the surrounding fields. From this vantage point, the entire colony could be supervised. In the early twentieth century, the Owners’ Tower was built — a residence reflecting the tastes of the time and serving as an unmistakable symbol of power and authority. The Masia de l’Ametlla, named after its owners, was originally an agricultural estate that included the adjoining western fields. In 1814, Josep Comas i Ametlla settled in an old mill in the municipality of Puig-reig. A few years later (1834), the brothers Ramon, Josep and Joan were commissioned by the Gironella Town Council to rebuild the weir of the town mill. The family’s importance is evident in their links to several mills — l’Ametlla de Casserres, l’Ametlla de Merola, Gironella, and Puig-reig — all of which took their name from them. The first textile workshops were installed in the mill under the patronage of Tomàs Bach of Berga. In 1858, Esteve Monegal purchased the factory and began the colony’s expansion. In 1873, he applied for permission to build a new weir to modernise production and increase profitability. The permit was granted in 1875, after which a new turbine was installed, the factory premises were enlarged, additional machinery was purchased, and more workers were hired. When Esteve Monegal died in 1879, his son Josep Monegal i Nogués continued the enterprise his father had begun. By 1900, the factory already had spinning and weaving sections and employed around three hundred workers. Taking advantage of the favourable conditions created by the First World War, the company expanded further, adopting the name “J. Monegal Nogués e Hijos”, before becoming a public limited company in 1925 under the name Textil Monegal, S.A. In 1966, amid the crisis in the textile sector, the factory closed down. With the end of production, the owners offered the workers the chance to purchase the homes they lived in, and most accepted the proposal. Josep Monegal Nogués, the colony’s chief driving force, was not only a cotton manufacturer and wholesale trader but also a member (1886–1890) and president (1902 and 1928) of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Mayor of Barcelona (1902–03), Senator (1905 and 1907), and a life senator from 1908 onwards. The Monegal family were also founding members of the Caja de Pensiones.

The house has an almost square floor plan with the main façade facing south, with a large porch with semicircular arches. Both to the east and west, the house has a similar distribution of space, while the north-facing façade has a circular tower that includes the spiral staircase to access the top floor, where the servants' quarters were originally located. Its exterior has a certain fortified character; if we look at the façade of the tower, the facing is of quilted stone left exposed and the roof is tamed with black slate, understandable in the spirit of the Berguedà businessmen of the time. The tower reproduces the outline of the Central European Gothic castle with a circular tower crowned by a conical roof and covered with black slate. It dates from after the organisation of the colony, towards the end of the 19th century. It was abandoned when the factory closed in 1966. However, in the 1970s it was acquired by a private individual who restored it again as a dwelling.