Guest House Our Lady with the Rose

The Gasthuis Onze-Lieve-Vrouw met de Roos is a museum and former hospital in Lessen in the Belgian province of Hainaut.This institution, which was founded in 1242 by the French princess Alix de Rosoit as a shelter for the poor and sick, served for almost 750 years, until 1980, as a hospital and in more recent times as a retirement home. Today, the monastery buildings, from the 16th to the 18th centuries, function as a museum that pays attention to its own history. There are infirmaries, beds, medical instruments, recipes, pewter crockery, Tournai porcelain, a library with 2000 antique books, paintings and precious gold and silverware on display. The complex also includes a cloister, chapel, herb garden and ice house. Lessen was known for its porphyry, a mottled, dark red stone that served as architectural decoration. The quarries can be visited.

Wikipedia