Convento de Santa Clara de la Parra, Baroque convent in La Parra, Spain.
Convento de Santa Clara de la Parra occupies a 2,500 m² plot at Calle de Santa María 16, built between party walls with a single street façade. Its load-bearing masonry and brick walls carry groin and barrel vaults under a curved-tile roof. Inside are the stone lintel portal, the church of the Santísimo Cristo de las Misericordias with its choir, the cloister, chapter house, refectory and cell wing.
The convent was founded in 1673 by Juana González Lozano for the Poor Clare nuns, who occupied it until their departure in 1979. The long presence of the religious community shaped the building's structure and purpose across the centuries.
The convent was founded on 17 July 1673 by Juana González Lozana, widow of Cristóbal Callexa de la Barrera, who donated her houses on calle de Santa María; the first nuns belonged to the Third Order of Saint Francis. The church, dedicated to the Santísimo Cristo de las Misericordias and San Juan Bautista, keeps three single-body Baroque altarpieces: the main one from the second half of the 17th century with salomonic columns carved with vine branches, and two 18th-century ones with estípites. Their only imagery is Franciscan emblems, an angelote and a pelican, Eucharistic symbol, carved on a tabernacle door.
The former convent now operates as a hotel with guest rooms in the original spaces. Visitors should note that it remains an occupied building and access may be limited to certain areas.
The entrance is a flat stone lintel portal, not an arched one, and the building's most distinctive finish is white limewash. Inside, the original turning wheel (torno) used to pass objects through the cloister wall survives, along with the grilles, woodwork and flooring.
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