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Monastery of la Inmaculada Concepción

Loeches, Cuenca del Henares, Madrid

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Monastery of la Inmaculada Concepción

Monument · Loeches, Cuenca del Henares, Madrid

The monastery of the Immaculate Conception stands in Loeches, facing the plaza de la Duquesa de Alba, also known as “the great convent.” It was founded in 1633 by Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel, count-duke of Olivares and favourite of Philip IV, after he acquired the lordship of Loeches; a devotee of the Immaculate Conception and believing himself descended from Saint Dominic de Guzmán, he placed it in the hands of the Recollect Dominican nuns after the town's Carmelite community rejected its patronage. The design is by Alonso Carbonel, royal architect and also the author of the Buen Retiro, who enlarged the palace where Olivares lived after his dismissal in 1643, until his death in Toro in 1645; he is buried in the church. Of the palace only the 17th-century granite doorway survives, the entrance to the stables. The Dominican nuns lived there until 2012.

Photo: Dirección General de Turismo. Consejería de Economía e Innovación Tecnológica. Comunidad de Madrid (CC BY 3.0 es)

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