The village of Porrera is located in a small flat area in one of the abutments of the Tossal, which is part of the Serra del Molló-Puigcerver, from where the confluence of the river Cortiella dominates three of its most important tributaries and of most regular flow: the Barranquill, which goes down from the Tossal; the stream of the Teixeta, which goes down from the col that has the same noun, and the ravine of the Sentius, which goes down from the municipal district of Pradell and Falset.

Evidences of prehistoric settlement do not exist, but it is not a ridiculous idea to think about a possible use of the resources in the zone on the part of the Palaeolithic and Neolithic settlers, who left their remains in caves and potholes in the mountains that surround the municipal district of Porrera from Falset and Pradell. This occupation seems to survive until the ibera culture and connects with the roman domination. The resources in the valleys that nowadays are part of the municipal district of Porrera, which could be exploited by the old settlers, such as mineral, wood, coal and hunt, did not allow a stable settlement in the zone due to the lack of caves to use like refuge.

The castle and the first houses were located in a certain distance from the river, according to their defensive look, and oriented towards the east. On the banks of the river there was a small alluvial plain (in the zone that nowadays is extended from where the meadow finishes up to the bridge in the road of Torroja) where, probably, the first settlers planted their cultivations and orchards. This use, still nowadays, is conserved, although in a testimonial way and has created names like the path of the orchard.

At the end of the twelfth century, Porrera was part of the territory controlled by Siurana until the year 1170, year in which it went to Albert de Castellvell. In the year 1171, he gave the municipal district to the monastery of Pedrabona in Sant Vicenç del Garraf except the mines of lead, iron and tin. In the year 1180 a conflict with the king Alfons I broke out since he had given it to Pere de Déu, adding, this time, the mines of argent.

In the year 1201, the canons of Sant Vicenç del Garraf granted letter of population to the inhabitants of Vallem Porreram. In April 1263 the monastery of Escaladei bought the territories and rights of Porrera that were added to the Priorat of the Cartuja d'Scala Dei.

In the thirteenth century the existence of a fortification with castle and walls is documented and in the year 1462 a group of porrerans (people from Porrera) went to fight against the troops of the king, obeying the call of the Generalitat (organ of the autonomous government of Catalonia). Later, during the War of Succession, Porrera was in favour of the austriacistes (in favour of the Austrian king) and collaborated in the defeat of the borbòniques troops (troops in favour of the Spanish king) in a battle near the village, in the last years of the war.

During the agitated sixteenth century, many porrerans, displeased with the abuses of the government of the king, were members of several groups of bandits, of whom the most known in the Priorat was the Carrasclet. It is necessary to think that, probably, for this reason, in the year 1718 the High Court made a part of the wall and of the castle of Porrera demolish.

During the eighteenth century, Porrera, like all the Priorat, lived moments of economic and demographic growth. It was as the outcome of the international demand for wine and brandy that the Priorat began to specialise in vine cultivation. Simultaneously, Porrera becomes a village to pass through for people who transported the wine towards the city of Reus , place from where the wines were prepared to be embarked in the port of Salou to the international markets. The village grew, even in the year 1804 a bridge is built to cross the river Cortiella, which allowed the growth of the village towards the path to

During the Napoleonic War the sometent (group of armed people in Catalonia who did not belong to the army and whose goal was to chase thieves and defend themselves against the enemy) from Porrera defeated a convoy of the Napoleonic army in a battle near the col of the Teixeta, when it went to the castle of Falset . In retaliation for this fact, the French army attacked the village and defeated the sometent. The soldiers remained some days in Porrera sacking, setting fire and profaning the church and the hermitage of Sant Antoni.

History has given the fame of liberal and rebel village to Porrera. It won this fame in the nineteenth century, during the wars between absolutistes (in favour of the political system in which the governor does not have any judicial limitations) and liberals (in favour of the system which defends the political and economic freedom). On the 15th of March of 1820, liberals win the elections in Porrera and proclaim the constitution of 1812, drawn up by Cortes of Cadiz and popularly well-known as "the Pepa". Many children of Porrera participated actively and in the first line in the carlines wars throughout this century. At the height of the Liberal Triennial, the militia of Porrera had to go to the near villages quite a lot of times to crush the rebellions in protest for the terrible economic situation of the country. In July 1822 when, taking advantage that the militia was not in the village, the village was attacked by realistic armies that set fire to many houses in the village and sacked the rest. As a result of these facts, the courts granted the title of Eminently Constitutional Village to Porrera and the children were named Benemèrits of the Motherland.

When the confiscation of the goods of the church took place, Porrera, like all the rest of villages under the domination of the Prior of Scaladei, got free of delmes (a tax levied by the prior, amounting to a tenth of the produce) in its cartoixa. When la cartoixa was set fire and plundered of its stones, since the cartoixans left not much in their previous escape, the fame of rebel, which already then preceded the porrerans, made that this destruction was attributed to them to a great extent. In those times Porrera was said to be the most rebellious village in Catalonia , sentence that also contributed to make the myth of liberal Porrera bigger.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, Porrera, like most of the Priorat, increased the extension of vineyards. Vicens Vives wrote that in the Priorat the extension of vineyards did not have any limits, in fields that until then were dedicated to cereals and on all slopes, even the coastal ones, however precipitous and stony they may have been, woodland disappeared to make way for terraces on which the vine was cultivated. This fact took place because of the great demand of wine in the international markets, as a result of the phylloxera plague that was ravaging the vines in France . At that time it was said that if Porrera poured the content of all the wine presses of the village to the river, more wine than water would flow, because of the great amount of vintage that was produced in its municipal district. The single-crop farming of the vine that entailed the social and economic dependency, turned out to be fatal when in 1893 the first focus of phylloxera in the region was discovered in Porrera, which had already attacked the Penedès. A short time later the vines became deserts and the population, attracted by the proximity of Reus , left most of the fields. Many porrerans, however, came back to clear the land and on many coastal slopes new vines were planted again, with American stocks immune to the plague and grafted onto the traditional autochthonous varieties.

At the beginning of the twentieth century some of those new vines and also old plantations until then left, were replaced by hazels, because this growing was much more profitable than the one of the vine, already then little valued as a result of the recovery of the French vines and the recession in the wine-producing sector. This fact coincides with the arrival of immigrants who settled in Porrera to work in the construction of the channel that would bring the water from the Siurana to Riudecanyes - first interbasin transfer between fluvial river basins done in Catalunya -, and made that Porrera conserved a number of inhabitants quite considerable, in relation to other villages in the same region.