Hopital Notre-Dame a la Rose

The Hopital Notre-Dame a la Rose was founded in 1242 by Alix de Rosoit and run by an Augustinian community of sisters until 1980, which means it functioned as a charitable hospital continuously for over seven centuries and was never converted to anything else. The whole complex survives: the great ward with beds along the walls and an altar at the end so that patients could follow mass, the cloister, the chapel, the pharmacy with its jars and instruments, the ice house, the farm buildings and the gardens of medicinal plants, along with the archive and an art collection the sisters accumulated. It is one of the most complete surviving medieval hospital sites in Europe, and its interest is that it shows the arrangement rather than reconstructing it.

What you actually see

• The great ward with its altar - beds arranged so patients could follow mass.
• The pharmacy - jars, instruments and the dispensing room intact.
• Medicinal plant gardens - the physic garden the hospital grew.
• Cloister and farm buildings - the whole working complex surviving.

When to go

Year round; it is indoors, with reduced winter hours. Two to three hours. Closed Mondays. Guided visits give considerably more than the self-guided route.

Honest expectations

Interpretation is in French with limited English. Some rooms are viewed from the doorway. The town of Lessines is otherwise unremarkable. Winter hours are short.

Nearby

Ath and Pairi Daiza are south; Geraardsbergen lies north.