This building was the headquarters of the town council until its transfer to the current site that took place about 100 years ago. Before the last refurbishment, which was carried out around the year 2000, investigations were carried out there, and it housed a small theatre that was often used for the dance of the town’s craftsmen (farmers, dressmakers, shoemakers ...) it was the headquarters of the town council during the Republic, and during the pro-Franco dictatorship, of the OJE (Spanish Youth Organization).
The coat of arms of the Pimentel family that adorns its North facade appears to associate to the identity of Viana from 1478 until the constitution of the city council in 1812.
Researchers believe that Viana became a royal town in the second half of the XVI century, which meant that it wasn´t controlled by the king or the manor directly. Thanks to this measure the residents of Viana stopped paying a jurisdictional rent that amounted to 40,000 reales a year and that included rights of lordship, fortitude and vassalage. The elderly were also exempted from paying the Marquis for forums and tributes for the use of the roads, the gates of the village, for crossing the bridges over the Bibei and Camba rivers or for the use of boats.
"The most important rivers are the Bibey, with its tributaries, the Camba, and the Xares. They are rivers full of trout, as well as the smallest rivulets, resulting in good catches even in small streams where it seems that there is not enough water for the trout to live. There are also eels. It is written in the song:
For the trout of Bibey
for eels of the Camba
and for pretty girls
There is nowhere like Viana "
Laureano Prieto
Contos Vianeses (1958)
