Binibona
The current name of Binibona appears in a document back in the year 1300. However, Bilamala, a place name documented in 1232, could have been the first name of the current Binibona, which already appears as Benimalen in 1250 and 1290 as Benimala. The year 1506 is documented as Beniabona, which seems to have replaced the "rahal or farmhouse of Binimala" that appears in the Book of Distribution and seems to be a typical case of name change due to superstitious reasons.
Later Cardinal Despuig on his map (1785) writes the name ’Mira-buena’ ’, which has been explained by the good perspective that this place presents towards other villages.
The town of Binibona has been a pioneer in rural tourism and we will have to visit it if we want to know first hand the best examples.
Source: ORDINAS GARAU, Antoni (2005) Guia de Binibona.
Village images
Places of interest
The town of Binibona is located two kilometers away from Caimari, driving by the street of Binibona.
First of all, we must talk about the houses of Can Beneït. The old access is located to the northwest, after a wall on the right with a baroque portal. The outer portal has a voussoirs round arch that communicates with the courtyard. In the background, the portal of the house, with a round arch, opens. The facade is three floors high. The private oratory, to the left of the courtyard, is dedicated to the Virgin Mary of Carmen, with an altarpiece that dates back from 1877. The access through the east entrance shows a way where a lowered arch opens that takes us to a new area, with a background in the back, which leads to the oil mill. On the left we find the main block of houses, three levels high. Another important house is Can Furiós, recently renovated. The facade has two floors, with – the outside portal of round arch voussoirs. On the right, we find a setter. The first floor shows two windows, one of which, the one on the right, is a balcony. We must highlight other houses such as Can Peroi or Casa Nova.
The village has medieval origins since it appears in the documentation of the thirteenth century under the name of Binimala. It seems that in the 16th century the old place name was changed to Binibona, for superstitious reasons. The original core arose in the surroundings of the houses of Son Catxo, currently known as Can Beneït. At the end of the 16th century, there were a total of seven houses. A century later they document ten and at the end of the nineteenth century about thirty. The mass was celebrated in the chapel of Can Beneït from 1784. Most of the time of the modern era the houses of Binibona were dominated by the Marquis del Palmer. At the beginning of the 20th century, the village was made up of some 27 houses and had a mayor, priest and public school for children, inaugurated in 1919. After the fifties, the years of almost total unemployment, foreigners began to rehabilitate the houses to be used as second homes or small rural hotels.
Binibona Street, 0.
These grand houses form part of a set that is organized around two courtyards. In the oldest one, we find the houses of the innkeepers, of the XVI-XVII centuries, and the chapel that was reformed in the XIX century. This courtyard closes towards the outside with a simple wall, where the outer portal is located, topped by a large semicircular arch framed with sandy stone and stone jambs. To the outside of the class is a fence over a cistern, which is accessed through a rare portal, a possible vestige of a building that was never finished. The smallest courtyard is the result of the reforms during the 19th century, which modified the main access of the complex, with a new outer portal oriented towards the urban center. This portal opens to a wall on which a corridor passes as a viewpoint. We must highlight the presence of a cistern from the deck which is accessed in the house of the nobiliary family. It is also quite interesting the stone staircase with wrought iron railings that saves the gap between the floor of the courtyard and the roof of the cistern.
The oldest buildings of this set date from the 16th century, to which the later parts were added. The house of this noble family were deeply reformed until they acquired the current configuration at the end of the 19th century. It has undergone a new reform, which has affected the whole complex to adapt it to new holiday use as an agro-tourism.
Public property located north of the municipality of Selva. It can be accessed through several mountain roads, the easiest way is starting from Binibona, and from the Coll de sa Batalla (Escorca).
It has an extension of 308 ha. It is a mountain property covered by holm oaks, ullastres, chaparrales and carritx, among which some oaks and pines trees stand out. There are remains of olive, almond and even garden marjats (stone walls) fields, abandoned today and invaded by the different chaparral. The farm is crossed by the torrent des Cascabeles, karst canyon of a high naturalistic and landscape value. In ses Figueroles, botanical endemisms abound, such as foxglove, joana steppe, saffron edge, llampúdol edge, steppe blanera, and much more. Different species of forest vertebrates also live, such as marten, mustel, finch, ferreret (endemic frog), wood pigeon, etc. It is a small mountain possession where the houses are located - of great rusticity and sobriety - various sources and mountain roads, marjats, the ruins of the houses of Sa Ruta and the only snow house of the term of Selva, today completely in ruins.
The oldest references of the Ses Figueroles estate date back to 1291 when the Figueroles shed is mentioned in a sale. The year 1370, among the boundaries of Alcanella, the Figueroles already existed. In 1456 two pieces of land were established, and a few years later, the mountain called Figueroles was mentioned. The lands that we know today with this name became the property of the Amer de Can Catxo family. With some interruption, the Amer family conserved the farm until 1997 it was sold to the Balearic Government.