Labadia de Santes Creus

• Its name.

In most of the parishes of the archbishopric of Tarragona, the word that designates the house where the priests live is called "abadia" whereas in other places people call it "rectoria".

Just in the middle of the balcony rail in the priest bedroom we can see a biretta that reminds us his presence there. In another balcony rail, just over the main facade of the church, we can find the double cross, which reminds us that it once belonged to the monastery of Santes Creus.

• History of the building.

The vicar monk who took care of the souls of Santes Creus, used to live in a tower called Asumpta, nowadays it is known as "ca la Bergadana". After the secularization process, in 1835, the priest abandoned that residence.

The sale of Church lands meant the privatization of most of the buildings that belonged to the monastery. The priest required a new house, and the house just next to the monastery was the best option. This house appeared on the inventory of those buildings that had once been expropriated according to those agreements between the Holy See and the Spanish kingdom, signed on 25th August 1859 and 4th January 1867, respectively.

The rectory and the house next to it were built in the middle of the 18th century and they were known as the "Houses of the retired monks".

In 1937, Generalitat de Catalunya, after having confiscated the rectory and the house of Riera marquis, started a process of restoration in order to habilitate a house for the President of the Generalitat de Catalunya. When the Civil War finished in 1939, those houses were given back to their owners.

• Restoring process.

This house was built in order to lodge the retired monks of Santes Creus, it was planned for this purpose and therefore for a contemplative and austere life. This explains its dimensions: the high ceilings in the bedrooms were built in order to avoid oppression and the wide spaces were conceived in order to avoid people thinking on themselves. Furniture was austere, scarce but useful.