Couvent des Cordeliers de Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, Gothic convent in La Neuville-en-Hez, France.
The Couvent des Cordeliers de Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde is a former Franciscan convent at La Neuville-en-Hez, on the edge of the Hez-Froidmont forest 500 m west of the hamlet of Boulincourt. Of the whole complex only the monumental Gothic entrance portal survives above ground: a round-headed arch of pale weathered voussoirs, topped by a masonry block with three pointed niches and a flat stone cap, flanked by low brick walls. The church, dormitory, cloister and bakery stood in the western part of the enclosure, crossed north to south by the ru de la Garde, which fed two fish ponds.
The monastery grew from a hermitage founded by a nobleman from Montigny in 1470 around a chapel dedicated to Saint Anthony, and was constructed between 1480 and 1483. Its establishment came after papal approval for a Franciscan settlement in the region.
The name Notre-Dame de la Garde was adopted in 1487, a year before the church was consecrated on 27 August 1488. The first superior, Raoul de Falize, was buried in the convent church; two epitaphs recorded by Louvet praise him as founder of La Garde and reformer of Saint-Paul and Wariville.
Only the monumental porch survives in elevation; the church, cloister and other buildings were demolished, the last standing structures in 1945. The arch stands at the edge of the Hez-Froidmont forest, about 500 m west of the hamlet of Boulincourt, on the road toward La Neuville-en-Hez. Approach on foot along the woodland edge; the ground around the masonry is unpaved.
Archaeological work in the 1980s uncovered evidence of possible Merovingian occupation at the site, several centuries before the monastery was built. This suggests the location held importance for people long before the convent's construction.
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