Monastery of the Immaculate Conception (Convent of Las Puras)

The closed convent of the Immaculate Conception (also known as the Royal Monastery) is one of the oldest convents in Almería.
 

Its foundation was ordained by Don Gutierre de Cárdenas (the first Christian governor of Almería, Duke of Maqueda, and Commander in Chief of León of the Order of Santiago) on 31 May 1498, as a monastery of the Order of Saint Clare.
 

In 1503, Don Gutierre de Cárdenas passed away, and in 1515 his widow Doña Teresa Enríquez changed the Order's title to the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady. The convent was located on a plot belonging to Don Gutierre de Cárdenas, specifically the block comprising today’s Cervantes, Eusebio Arrieta, Gutierre de Cárdenas streets, and San Fernando Square.
 

The conventual ensemble we can see today consists of several irregular volumes with flat roofs, except for the church and the transept, which have four-sided roofs. It is arranged around a courtyard with three arcaded sides and a rectangular cloister to which the church is annexed.

The arcaded cloister is centred around a garden and encircled by a gallery of lowered (or flat) arches on its lower floor. These are built in brick (imitating the layout with red and white paint), supported by Tuscan columns.
 

The upper floor gallery is lintelled. Its lintel rests on wooden corbels over Tuscan columns. Between the columns of this gallery, there are parapets with geometric lattices.
 

The church has a box-plan (or hall) layout with a single nave. The entrance is baroque (18th century). The entrance opening is lintelled and flanked by simple Tuscan pilasters, with recessed shafts. Above the lintel, there is an entablature with an architrave finishing in garlands with a frieze of vegetal motifs. The coat of arms appears in the centre, with masks on both sides. The entablature is crowned with a prominent curved cornice embracing a niche with a scallop shell, housing an image of the Immaculate Conception. The cornice and niche are crowned with a coat of arms.
 

Inside the church, we find a roof of Mudejar tradition trusses of rectangular rafters. However, these rafters are partially visible as a barrel vault with lunettes and transverse arches was inserted during the Baroque period. The walls are lined with four smooth Tuscan pilasters that support a simple frieze with a cornice. The main chapel has a rectangular plan, covered with a lowered dome. This dome bears decoration motifs, elaborated with gilded stucco on its pendentives.
 

To the left of the church stands a simple 17th-century lookout tower, with semicircular openings framed by pilasters.