Church on Sunday...Holy Trinity Chapel,Richelieu

The tiny chapel of the Holy Trinity set behind the large doors of number 21 Grand Rue in Richelieu had intrigued me for a while and although it features on my 'Churches page' on www.experienceloire.com   I could not find any information on why it was there squashed between two of the grand town houses.

Last week when we revisited the town we took the opportunity to pop our heads in again. Inside there are some old photographs which looked to be of a school, pupils and teachers. The word orphelinat (orphanage) could be seen but the connection wasn't obvious. On Leaving the chapel we saw a group of people leaving one of the houses behind the chapel so took the opportunity to ask them if they knew its history.

They explained that we and the chapel were in the grounds of a former orphanage and as we looked behind them we could see some of the arches that feature in the photographs. So we had the answer but also more questions!  Tried to do a little more research on this but to no avail.