Convent of the Carmelite Sisters

This is a three-story attached building, with three bays and a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carme adjoining the right-hand side. It features a gable front façade, and a flat roof over the chapel, which is a rectangular, neo-Gothic structure with a single nave.

Female education was practically non-existent in the village in the mid-19th century, so in 1876, the parish priest Ramon Sitjar and Paula Despuig, superior general of the congregation of the Carmelite Sisters of Charity, oversaw the opening of a school for girls in premises opposite the church loaned by a person from Sant Climent d’Amer. This had become possible thanks to a financial grant from Ramon Camprodon, a monk granted exclaustration during the First Republic taking refuge in La Cellera. The school chapel was not inaugurated until 1884. In 1885, a cholera outbreak meant that both the school and the convent were used temporarily as a hospital to care for the sick.

Gradually, the number of pupils at the school increased and it became an integral part of the local community. For girls who worked during the week, a Sunday school was even opened. Over the years, some thirty local women took up positions at one or other of the village’s school centres. During the Spanish Civil War, the building was converted into a stable and sheep pen, although the people of the village helped support the community of nuns, in thanks for the services they had offered.

In 1940, a class for boys was introduced, and in 1970 the Cellera community merged with that of Girona. Shortly afterwards, the school closed and only a kindergarten remained here. In 1977, after major renovations, the building was fitted out as a residence and sanctuary for elderly of Carmelite Sisters who had retired from active life.