Story

The story of Casa de la Vall

Casa de la Vall

Somewhere inside this stone house is a cupboard with seven locks. Known as the closet of the seven keys, it holds historic documents such as the Manual Digest and the Politar Andorrà, and it has one lock for each of Andorra's parishes.

Casa de la Vall was built in 1580 by the Busquets family as a manor house with a defensive tower; their coat of arms is still at the door beside that of Andorra. In 1702 it was acquired by the Consell de la Terra, and until 2011 it was the seat of the General Council of Andorra.

On the ground floor justice was administered in the courtroom, while the main floor holds the Council Chamber and a chapel dedicated to St. Ermengol. The old Postal Museum upstairs was dismantled to make room for the commission that drafted the Constitution in 1993. You may even have this house in your pocket: it appears on the Andorran 1 euro coin.

This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗

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