Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Mirepois cloister, located in Martel in the Lot, is a historical monument listed since 1931. It preserves medieval remains embedded in a house adjacent to a Renaissance-style courtyard dating from the late 16th or early 17th century. Only the north and west sides of this courtyard remain, while the south side was redesigned in the 17th century with an arcade gallery and a monumental staircase. The Mirepois Sisters, founded in 1675 in Cahors, occupied the site from 1744, transforming the southern house body and adding a triangular pediment.

Originally, the convent consisted of several medieval buildings, including a 14th-century residence restructured in the 16th century with galleries on courtyard. In the 17th century, major works added cross-sections, a straight flight staircase, and a neo-Renaissance ceiling in the 20th century. The site, used as a college before 1746, became a school in the 19th and 20th centuries under the Grey Sisters. The park retains traces of the old rampart and the Sers Gate.

The cloister was partially inscribed in 1931, then a protective extension included in 2024 the facades, roofs, galleries, inner courtyard, monumental staircase, and a living room decorated with caissons. Medieval vestiges, visible on elevations (doors, windows with broken lintels, chains of angle), testify to successive transformations. The site, vacant in 1977, was waiting for a restoration to enhance this heritage combining religious, educational and architectural history.

Historical sources refer to local studies, such as those of Joseph Daymard (1906) on the women's congregations of the Lot, or Colette Chantraine (1995) on the Quercy heritage. The cloister thus illustrates the evolution of a monastic place of life in school, reflecting the social and urban changes of Martel since the Middle Ages.

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