IT was the scene, it is claimed, where a miracle happened.

But now a room at a Hampshire convent where a nun was brought back from the dead by a saint who had himself died 200 years earlier, is to be demolished.

The spot where the Blessed Louis Marie de Montford miraculously cured Sister Gerard of Calvary in 1927 was a pilgrimage site until two years ago, when Abbey House in Romsey was declared unsafe.

Now the nuns who own the La Sagesse Convent want to knock it down and redevelop it.

Sister Gerard was on her deathbed with a bacterial infection of both lungs when she saw a vision of de Montford and made a sudden recovery.

Her curing was taken as evidence by the church of a miracle, and enabled de Montford to be made a saint.

Only the Victorian façade will survive the redevelopment of Abbey House, with a new home for the nuns built immediately behind it.

The Miracle Room will be lost, and only the bed where the miracle happened will be kept.

It will be moved to a dedicated area of the neighbouring St Joseph’s Romsey Catholic Church, which is to have a small extension added under the plans, providing somewhere for the public to sit and reflect on Sister Gerard’s cure.

The Daughters of Wisdom, who own the convent, want to redevelop it because they say Abbey House is unsafe for the frail and elderly sisters to use.

Ceilings have collapsed in the building, which dates back to the 1890s.

Neither the house nor the church are listed buildings.

Richard Heath, from RHA Architects, which has drawn up the proposals, said it is important that the site’s historic links are preserved in the new building’s design, and insisted that the public would have much better access to the miracle bed in the church.

He said: “After six months of careful historic research, consultation and assessment, it is proposed to carefully remove about 60 per cent of the building group comprising the La Sagesse Convent and St Joseph’s Church.

“The latter is to be kept in its entirety. The bed on which the miracle occurred is to be moved into a new special place made for it in St Joseph’s.”