Pabellones de la Finca Güell

Just behind the park of the Palau de Pedralbes is a fence and gate guarded by one of Gaudí’s first and most formidable ironworks, the Pedralbes Dragon (1884). For once this isn’t St George’s victim, but that of another Catalan hero — Barcelona’s ‘founder’ Hercules — as described by the national poet Jacint Verdaguer in his epic L’Atlàntida, which guards the golden apples of the Hesperides, symbolised by the orange tree on the right-hand post.

Spanning 18ft, the dragon writhes across the gate, whips its scaly tail, baring long, pointy teeth (originally it actually would snap its jaws when the gate was opened).