Clocher de la Charité and Place Antonin Poncet

Why is it significant?

Pause in the quiet elegance of Place Antonin Poncet before the solitary stone steeple of the Clocher de la Charité, rising proudly beside rows of clipped linden trees.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Pause in the quiet elegance of Place Antonin Poncet before the solitary stone steeple of the Clocher de la Charité, rising proudly beside rows of clipped linden trees. Designed in 1667 by architect Jacques Mimerel, this refined classical bell tower is the only surviving element of the monumental Hôpital de la Charité, an immense charitable hospital complex founded in 1614 to shelter the city's poorest beggars, orphaned children, and destitute travelers. When the hospital buildings were controversially demolished in 1933 to open civic space toward the Rhône, heritage advocates fiercely fought to preserve this soaring stone tower as an architectural witness to three centuries of civic compassion and medical history. The square was subsequently redesigned and named in honor of Antonin Poncet, an influential nineteenth-century Lyon surgeon who pioneered modern antiseptic methods in the city's operating theatres and revolutionized battlefield wound care. Standing near the tranquil reflecting pools, you appreciate how the baroque stone masonry bridges the grand emptiness of Bellecour with the rushing waters of the Rhône River just ahead. The chime of bells drifts peacefully across the sunny lawns.

Look up at the delicate pierced stone balustrade and octagonal cupola capping the tower: Mimerel combined classical restraint with baroque movement, creating one of the most harmonious seventeenth-century silhouettes in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.

Inside the historic hospital once stood a secret revolving turntable or tour d'abandon, where desperate mothers could anonymously deposit unwanted newborn babies to be sheltered and raised by the charitable sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul.

Notice the monumental Post Office building along the western flank: erected in 1938 by Michel Roux-Spitz, its sleek limestone facade features a colossal ninety-metre fresco depicting the history of postal communications and telecommunications.

Head northeast along Quai Jules Courmont to behold the colossal riverside dome of the Grand Hôtel-Dieu.