Convento de la Merced Calzada, Religious convent in Valladolid, Spain

The Convento de Nuestra Señora de la Merced stood in the San Juan neighbourhood, near the southern branch of the Esgueva and the second city wall. It grew from houses donated by Leonor Téllez de Meneses, former queen of Portugal, whose will asked for a convent there. The Mercedarian friars occupied the site from the 14th century until the 19th-century Desamortización, when the buildings were sold off, dismantled and destroyed; housing blocks were later built on the plot.

The foundation date is uncertain: old authors place it between 1220 and 1270, and tradition credits Pedro Nolasco or the fourth general, Pedro Amer (1272–1291). The monks moved from houses on calle de la Guariza to the Otomanes houses, and finally to houses left by Queen Leonor Téllez de Meneses, widow of Fernando I of Portugal, who died in Valladolid; her testamentary wish was a convent for her daughter María, but the houses went to the male Mercedarian community.

The Mercedarian community was dedicated to ransoming captives held by Muslims in North Africa, an activity begun in the first third of the 13th century. According to local tradition, Queen Leonor Téllez de Meneses was buried in the first chapel, in a niche set into the Epistle wall. Her houses, left in her will for a convent, passed instead to the male Merced Calzada community.

Nothing of the convent survives: the buildings were sold off, dismantled and destroyed, and 20th-century housing blocks now occupy the plot in the San Juan neighbourhood. Look for the site near the former south branch of the Esgueva, close to the second city wall, and treat the streets as the only trace of the old complex.

The convent's founding date is uncertain: in 1770 its own commander, fray Joseph de las Llagas, admitted he could find no papers proving it. Tradition credits Pedro Nolasco himself, while historians such as Adeline Rucquoi place it during the generalate of fray Amerio (from 1272). The site is now occupied by housing blocks built in the 20th century.