Beaune Town Hall (Former Ursuline Convent), Hôtel de Ville de Beaune (ancien couvent des Ursulines)

What you will see

From the rue de l'Hôtel-de-Ville, take in the 1817 front with its carved decoration, then look at the long wings of the former convent behind it. Two dormer windows with carved scrolls survive from the convent's original roof, destroyed by the fire of 1815. For almost 150 years the town museum was housed here, before it moved to the Porte Marie de Bourgogne. The surrounding streets hold some of Beaune's finest old houses.

History

Ursuline nuns from Autun founded a convent in Beaune on 25 May 1626 to teach girls. Over the next decades they bought several houses with gardens along the street. In 1697 they were able to build a real convent, a U-shaped building around a vaulted cloister, with a church extending one wing. An inscription on a cloister pillar records the laying of the first stone on 6 July 1697.

After the Revolution the old convent became the town hall. It was adapted in the early 19th century and rebuilt after a fire in 1815. In 1817 a new front judged fitting for a public monument was added, with carved decoration by the sculptor Bonnet. A matching wing for the library followed in 1850. The building has been listed as a historic monument since 1946.