Useu
Useu
Useu is a small village of five inhabited houses, located in the area known as “Sobre Gerri”, in the eastern part of the municipal territory. It stands at 843 metres above sea level, on a small hill strategically positioned at the confluence of the Barranc del Riu Major and the Barranc de les Salines, on whose summit there once stood a medieval castle controlling the route towards Alt Urgell. Useu had its own municipality until the mid-19th century, when it was incorporated into the municipality of Baén.
The first documentary references to Useu date from the late 11th century, when the counts of Pallars donated a farmhouse in Useu to the monastery of Gerri. The monastery of Gerri exercised its authority over the village of Useu in the centuries that followed; in the mid-12th century, in Pope Alexander III’s bull confirming the possessions of the monastery of Gerri, the church of Sant Romà de Useu appears together with its village and lands as a possession of this monastery.
The castle of Useu, dating from the 12th–13th centuries, was under the jurisdiction of the monastery of Gerri. We know that by the 18th century it was already in ruins and was probably reused as a farmhouse. Today, only some traces remain of the northern wall, following the rock of the hill, and of the western tower, a square-plan structure with arrow slits.
The old Romanesque church of Sant Romà is located on the outskirts of the village, at the foot of the path leading to Vilesa. It is a late 11th- to early 12th-century church with a single nave, probably covered by a semicircular barrel vault supported by two transverse arches. The nave ends in a semicircular apse covered with a quarter-sphere vault, with a blocked round-arched window. Today, this church is half-ruined. In the 18th century, a new church was built inside the village under the same dedication of Sant Romà.
Useu is set in a place with extraordinary views over the Riu Major ravine and the Boumort range, making it an ideal place for hiking and mountain biking, as well as for observing the wildlife typical of Boumort: deer, wild boar, foxes, hares, partridges and scavenging birds.