the history

situation

La Devesa Park is situated to the northwest of Girona city. It extends from the River Onyar until it meets the River Güell in an east-west direction, and from the River Ter up to Passeig de La Devesa (former N-II main road) in a north-to-south direction.
The park occupies an area of 40 hectares, of which some three-quarters are taken up by plane trees arranged forming broad avenues; in the rest, there are buildings and zones laid to garden.

the name

An ordinary noun has been used as the name for the park. The word "devesa" means an extension of land covered with natural vegetation, used for grazing and obtaining firewood. At the outside, these were indeed some of the uses to which La Devesa was put. It was only later than it came to be used as a promenade.
The first mention of La Devesa in documents dates back to 1767. Alongside that name it has also been called "paseo arbolado" (tree-lined promenade) and "alameda" (same meaning). Much earlier this land had been called "aigualeixos" (fluvial deposit). And when La Devesa was already in use as a promenade, it was also known simply as "el passeig" (the promenade).

origin and evolution

Situated at the confluence of the rivers Ter, Onyar and Güell, La Devesa was originally a zone of sandy soils formed by sedimentation of the materials carried by these rivers. The area was often flooded by their waters, and particularly those of the Ter, which at high-water times also occupied the city itself.
La Devesa and the other land on the banks of the Ter as it passes through Girona was donated to the city in three phases. In 1423, Queen María Victoria ceded part; the following year her husband, King Alfons the Magnanimous, made a second donation, and finally in 1510 King Ferran the Catholic finally transferred all that land that still belonged to the royal family.
The idea was to allow the city to use the land as a defence against the high waters of the river and as a source of income to offset the losses caused by the floods. The vegetation that grew there spontaneously could act as a natural barrier against the floods. But to get some benefit from it, various schemes were implemented.
The main economic activity was tree plantation, normally Lombardy poplars and white poplars, which would later be felled to obtain money by selling the wood. The first felling for making military defences came in 1794. Whether for the first or second reason, during the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century, plantation and felling were very frequent.
By the 18th century, however, there was a reference to La Devesa as a promenade. This recreational use was shared with the other strictly economic uses.
La Devesa was also occupied by vegetable gardens. The fact that they were often destroyed by floods led in 1837 to that activity being replaced by grazing, which lasted down to 1865. From that time onwards La Devesa may be said to have been oriented finally towards use as a promenade.
In 1859 the municipal architect Martí Sureda i Deulovol, at the initiative of the mayor Marià Hernández, designed the current layout of the park, and the first plane trees were planted. La Devesa then had its present structure and dimensions.
This gives the lie to the popular belief that La Devesa in its present form was the work of the French. La Devesa was left in a very poor state following the Napoleonic sieges, and over the years when they occupied the city (1810-1814) they replanted it and saw that it was taken care of. To them is attributed the start on planting of trees based on town planning principles using updated cartography, but not that La Devesa as reconstructed by them formed the basis of the present park, nor that they were the first to use it as a promenade.
The high point of its beauty and social use came in the first third of this century. It became a place for children and the young and old to gather, stroll and enjoy leisure time. Festive events, parades and military march-pasts, athletic completions and so forth were held in the park. These were years in which La Devesa played a full part in the life of the city.
But there then started also cessions for all kinds of uses of the park, division into plots for private use and construction of buildings. The parkland became an immediately available resource to meet the city’s land and facilities needs. And all this led to a change in its appearance.
Around 1940 people still took walks there often, but by a few years later it was clear that the citizens had distanced themselves from it. That distancing has been linked with many causes, most attributed to the fact that La Devesa was some way away from the city.

The features that separated Girona from La Devesa are obvious enough: there were the natural barriers such as the River Güell, and artificial ones too, such as the railway line and the road.
For nearly a century, to get to it one had to pass through a hole made in the railway embankment, and by crossing a bridge over the River Güell, before one finally arrived at the entrance to the park. The railway line was taken up in 1973, while a few years before that the Güell had been diverted into its present course. Some obstacles disappeared, but others – such as the N-II main road – were built.
It remains true, however, that there had also been barriers back in the times when it was much used by people. The reasons must thus be sought elsewhere. In the 1960s abandonment of the park was related with the boom in private-car use, which began to transform Girona social life and change people’s habits. It was a period when La Devesa was abandoned and people no longer went there. The City Hall took no care of it and the trees were diseased.
The mid-1960s saw the beginnings of a social movement in favour of La Devesa. A first study of the tree-health problems was drawn up in 1975 by Narcís Motjé, commissioned by the city’s professional associations. In 1976 came a "Save La Devesa" campaign organised by the Assemblea Democràtica d’Artistes de Girona with sponsorship from the province’s professional associations.
It was with the first local government councils of the democratic period that there arose a firm will to recover La Devesa, both in terms of tree health and social use and adaptation to citizen needs.
Nowadays, in spite of the main road, the spread of the city has banished the former feeling that the park lies well away from the city and has led to its being made part of the city.
The trees are cared for with painstaking monitoring and control, and various activities are fostered, such as the Trade Fairs and Festivals of Sant Narcís, the Spring Festivals, exhibitions at Girona Trade Fair Centre, the weekly markets and the night bars (called "carpes") in the summertime. Some facilities have also been recovered and refurbished, such as the municipal sports zone or the hut at the entrance to the gardens, the Environmental Education and City Education Resource Centre which promotes the drawing up of routes such as this one and provides all kinds of information about La Devesa. The gardens of La Devesa also house the Environment Institute.
This work means that the park has been adapted once more to present-day conditions and customs and has become a leading feature in the life of the city.

the historical gardens of la devesa

Their origins go back to the beginning of the 19th century, when gardens were fashionable walkways for the well-off. The military governor of Girona, imitating what had been done in other places, had one laid in La Devesa, but the frequent floods made it very difficult to maintain the garden.
The gardens in the present park were laid in two parts. The one more to the east was laid at the beginning of the 19th century, and the west one rather later. At the beginning of the 20th century, the two gardens were made into one by means of an avenue of plane trees we can see immediately we enter and which runs between the park’s two entrances. The appearance of these plane trees is quite different from those we see outside, for they are not as tall and their branches have been pruned back to make them grow horizontally and provide good shade in the summer. It is a garden in the French style, that is, laid out in beds borned by hedges forming geometrical figures and with headpieces of trees and shrubs cut back to various shapes.
As we stroll around it we can observe and get to know the wide variety of plants in the garden, look at the sculptures and enjoy this welcoming and peaceful area of leisure and play for the young and the old, as well as one that lends itself to social relations and a peaceful chat.
We have mentioned the considerable variety of plants. Some are authochthonous, that is, native to the country, while others – most in fact – are exotic plants originating from other countries. Of the latter, some have adapted so well to our territory that they are now to be found as a matter of course in our countryside, and so are called naturalised species, such as the robinia (Robinia pseudoacacia). There are others, on the other hand, which can only survive with special care, such as the privet (Ligustrum japonicum) or cycas (Cycus revoluta).
Among the curious features of these gardens we should mention the fountain of the peacock cage.
What is delightful about the fountain is the vegetation which grows there and which varies according to the season of the year, changing its appearance considerably. We might notice that there is hardly any soil, and so only plants which need a lot of moisture and little soil can take root there. Here we can find mosses, umbrella plants (Cyperus alternifolius), maidenhair ferns (Adiantum capillus veneris), etc.
The peacocks’ house, at the end of the west sector of the gardens, attracts the attention due to these birds’ elegant, eye-catching tail-feathers.