Kloster Mariensee

Current exhibitions

About the museum

Count Bernhard II of Wölpe endowed the convent for Cistercian nuns around 1213/14; according to current research, the founding year of 1207 long cited goes back to a scribal error in a charter from 1227. The nuns lived in strict enclosure and managed extensive landholdings. The plain brick church dates from this early period; its three bays were built around the middle of the 13th century, and the western bay was added in the early 14th century.

During the Reformation, Mariensee was not dissolved in 1543 but continued as a Protestant convent for women – a path that Duchess Elisabeth of Calenberg paved for many convents in the region. After a major fire in 1720, the present convent building was erected from 1726 to 1729 as a Baroque four-wing complex. In 1748 the poet Ludwig Christoph Heinrich Hölty was born in Mariensee; a small exhibition commemorates him.

The convent is one of the five Calenberg convents and is administered by the Klosterkammer Hannover as part of the Allgemeiner Hannoverscher Klosterfonds. To this day, a small Protestant community lives here under the leadership of an abbess. Since 2007 the convent museum has documented life in Lower Saxony's Protestant women's convents from the Middle Ages to the present; special exhibitions have been devoted, for example, to the 1522 prayer book of Abbess Odilie von Ahlden. The community cultivates traditional convent crafts such as Klosterstich (convent stitch embroidery) and calligraphy, offers concerts, seminars, and retreat days, and keeps open the gardens, laid out on a Baroque model with herb beds.

Highlights

• Gothic brick church from the 13th century
• Baroque four-wing complex from 1726–1729 with cloister
• Convent museum on life in Protestant women's convents
• Original 1522 prayer book of Abbess Odilie von Ahlden
• Historic convent gardens with herb gardens
• Exhibition on the poet Ludwig Christoph Heinrich Hölty

Permanent exhibitions

• Klostermuseum – Installations, exhibits, and panels guide visitors through life in northern German women's convents from the Middle Ages through the Reformation and the 19th century to the present, with audio stations featuring texts and music.
• Unter einem Dach – Kunst im Kloster – Works by contemporary artists in photography, graphic art, painting, and sculpture enter into dialogue with the historic spaces in the cloister and in the museum under the convent roof.

Founded

2007

Operated by

Klosterkammer Hannover (Allgemeiner Hannoverscher Klosterfonds)

Director

Äbtissin Bärbel Görcke

Admission & discounts

€5 per person for the open tour (as of 2025), museum visit included. On International Museum Day, admission and tours in the museum are free.

Accessibility

The museum hasn’t published any information on this – please ask the museum directly.

Kids & families

The museum hasn’t published any information on this – please ask the museum directly.

Getting there & parking

By car via the A 2 (Herrenhausen exit) and the B 6 to Neustadt, then toward Mandelsloh via Empede to Mariensee.

Amenities & dining

• Café: not available
• Restaurant: not available

Parking lot directly behind the convent church. No on-site food service; refreshments at the Dorfladen Mariensee (village shop) and, in summer, at the ice cream café on Höltystraße. Reading room during office hours.

Events & venue rental

The museum hasn’t published any information on this – please ask the museum directly.

Plan your visit