7 ethnographic museums in Asturias where you can take a trip back in time

Asturias is one of the regions with the greatest potential and ethnographic heritage in the whole of Europe, and proof of this is its varied and fascinating network of ethnographic museums scattered throughout the region. They are all ideal places for a journey into folk culture, the way of life of yesteryear and, ultimately, the collective memory.

An intense and extensive journey into the past through seven ethnographic museums in Asturias that you’ll find truly enlightening!

The “Pepe el Ferreiro” Ethnographic Museum in Grandas de Salime was founded in 1984, based on the ethnographic collection of José María Naveiras Escanlar, popularly known as “Pepe el Ferreiro”, after whom the museum is now named. It is a leading museum in Asturias and one of the most important ethnographic museums in northern Spain, thanks to the highly significant collection it houses.

Housed in the former Vicarage in the town of Grandas de Salime (the municipal capital), this building was restored for the occasion, and the museum now covers an area of over 3,000 square metres.

The exhibition areas are divided across three main buildings, which are examples of the region’s traditional architecture: the Rectory, the Miller’s House and A Casoa. The collection focuses on the way of life, rural trades and traditions, and is primarily centred on western Asturias, although there are exhibits from other parts of Asturias, as well as from the rest of Spain and Europe. The museum features numerous, highly detailed spaces and settings that document life in days gone by: a barber’s shop, a tailor’s workshop, a kitchen, a small hospital, a school, a fizzy drink factory, an area displaying farming tools, hunting and fishing equipment, traditional wooden clogs, a loom… and even a chapel with its own cemetery. In addition, the outdoor areas feature a mill, a hórreo (traditional granary), a panera (bread store), and a cabazo (traditional granary).

The museum regularly organises activities and workshops, which are ideal for family outings.

The Grandas de Salime Ethnographic Museum ‘Pepe el Ferreiro’ features in our cover photo, taken by Mampiris.

The Birthplace Museum of the Marquis of Sargadelos, situated in Santa Eulalia de Oscos, just 35 kilometres from the Ethnographic Museum of Grandas de Salime, is a fine example of how to create an ethnographic journey through the memories of the life of a great iron industrialist, Antonio Raimundo Ibáñez, the Marquis of Sargadelos (1749–1809).

The birthplace of this distinguished figure is now an exhibition space dedicated to his life and work. In the late 18th century, Ibáñez founded one of Spain’s first foundries specialising in cast iron and earthenware.

The museum exhibition highlights the Marquis of Sargadelos’s connection to his native region in western Asturias, where there was once a significant wrought-iron industry – a tradition that has survived to the present day – and where the local population is deeply committed to the preservation of their indigenous cultural heritage.

The House Museum features spinning equipment, a lareira (kitchen), a bread oven, a living room, viewing points, a hórreo (granary), a forge, a wine cellar, a washhouse, a corrada (covered walkway) and an exhibition hall. It is usually a very lively venue that organises a variety of activities. In fact, it hosts numerous craft and training workshops on a variety of topics, such as basket weaving, beer brewing, sourdough, cheese-making, candle-making, natural cosmetics, soaps, aromatic and medicinal plants, an introduction to shiatsu, as well as scent tastings and perfume creation.

Las Ayalgas de Silviella is a museum collection located in this hamlet in the municipality of Belmonte de Miranda, just 8 kilometres from the municipal capital, in an area of outstanding natural beauty.

Las Ayalgas de Silviella boasts over 2,000 metres of exhibition space, divided into several galleries, as well as a reception area and a café, all housed in a building of historical significance, as it comprises former workshops and warehouses designed by the architect Joaquín Vaquero Palacios, which were used in the construction of the Grandas de Salime hydroelectric power station and the Miranda power station at Las Lleras, in Belmonte de Miranda.

The 1, 000-square -metre Main Central Hall houses the collection of vehicles and motoring artefacts, a blacksmith’s forge and ironworking crafts, agricultural machinery, a soft drinks factory, and various parts, engines and vehicles that have been of paramount importance in rural life in Asturias. The North Side Hall, measuring 300 square metres, houses the collection of everyday utensils, weights and measures, small tools, an 1850s English grand piano made of palo de santo wood, a collection of antique clocks, and the earliest electrical appliances (a record player, vacuum cleaners, telephones). The South Side Hall, measuring 300 square metres, houses the mills, a spelt trodden mill, the torture chamber, and an area displaying kitchen utensils and farming tools representative of Asturias.

A unique feature of Las Ayalgas, which has its own restoration workshop, is that every item in this museum collection has been restored and is in working order. In fact, Las Ayalgas regularly holds exhibitions, both within the exhibition space and at other events. Furthermore, Las Ayalgas de Silviella organises various cultural activities throughout the year, including a number of historical re-enactments.

The Grau/Grado Museum of Ethnography and History, founded in 1982, currently houses several collections, which are spread across three venues:

Villa ya Mercáu, located in the Fontela Palace in the town centre, where the tourist office is situated, and which focuses on the history of Grado, the market, industry, commercial traditions and bourgeois life, with spaces such as the shop, the market and the barber’s, etc. It also houses two private collections: the History of Photography and Accordions.

The Cider Press, situated in the Miranda-Valdecarzana Palace, also in the town centre and now the House of Culture, contains two enormous cider presses, one of which features antique carvings, as well as other objects used in the production and consumption of cider.

The Traditional Culture Collection and the Civil War Collection, both located in La Cardosa, 500 metres from the centre of the town of Grau/Grado.

The Traditional Culture Collection brings together a heritage relating primarily to the central-western region of Asturias and is organised into several sections dedicated to bread (mills, kneading troughs), the home (kitchen, bedrooms, crockery), farming and livestock (threshing floors, communal lands, tools, etc.), and traditional trades (blacksmith’s forge, loom, basketry, carpentry, pottery, school, etc.)

The Civil War section also features several areas showcasing the history of the Civil War in Asturias and in Grado, the fortification of the area, as well as details and stories from both sides.

Housed in a former smelting blast furnace – a symbol of the municipality’s industrialisation in the 19th century – the Quirós Ethnographic Museum showcases the rural way of life in the area and how it gradually changed with the development of mining.

The museum recounts the industrial history of this part of Asturias, marked by the arrival of foreign companies in the municipality, as well as the construction of the road, the blast furnaces and the railway. This history is brought to life in the museum’s outdoor area, where visitors can see the large retaining wall that supports the base of one of the blast furnaces, as well as a complex of underground galleries through which the furnaces’ operating mechanisms ran.

Rural life is extensively represented in various areas, where the socio-economic and cultural profile of this community is brought to life through sounds, images, games and other activities.

In addition, a rural house is recreated across three floors: the ground floor houses the stables where the animals are kept, the cider press and the area dedicated to men’s woodworking trades (shoe-maker, carpenter, basket-maker, etc.). The first floor is dedicated to the family unit and its social dynamics in a rural setting, showcasing a traditional dwelling as well as rural labour and women’s trades (washerwoman, cook, dressmaker, etc.). The second and top floor recreates a typical Quiros pilgrimage, alongside an exhibition of various musical instruments.

Outside, there are several structures typical of village life: a granary (hórreo), a fountain, a drinking trough, a washhouse, a school, etc., as well as traditional games such as ‘la rana’, ‘la llave’ and ‘el cascayo’.

The Ethnographic Museum of Eastern Asturias is situated in Porrúa, in the municipality of Llanes, just four kilometres from the town of Llanes. Opened in 2000, the museum owes its origins to the donation of the houses and estate at Llacín, made a few years earlier by the Sordo family, Mexicans originally from Porrúa.

It is an architectural complex dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, comprising two dwellings and their outbuildings. The exhibition area recreates a traditional farmhouse – a place for both living and working – supplemented by several themed rooms, offering a total of 400 square metres of ethnographic space.

The museum buildings are situated on a one-hectare site, which has been converted into a public park, featuring a wide variety of fruit and woodland trees. Among the trees , the monumental avocado tree – brought from Mexico and planted in 1906 – stands out. The circumference of its trunk is currently 7 metres. The museum’s surroundings are therefore an ideal place to enjoy both the temporary exhibitions and other activities at the Llacín Cultural Centre, as well as the sports and children’s facilities that make a visit a well-rounded experience.

In addition, the museum also organises guided tours of the surrounding area, such as the Paseo del Agua or the Mañanga Cultural Landscape Route.

The Muséu del Pueblu d'Asturies was founded in 1968 and comprises a 30,000-square-metre site to which three buildings have been relocated: the 17th-century Valdés house; the González de la Vega House, which houses the Bagpipe Museum; and the Asturias Pavilion from the 1992 Seville World Expo.

The site features granaries and bread bins dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as several bowling alleys for playing the various forms of the game found in Asturias, an exhibition of agricultural tools, a single-storey farmhouse typical of central Asturias, and a pond, which is a remnant of the marshland landscape that once dominated the mouth of the River Piles.

The museum boasts an extensive collection of ethnographic artefacts, visual documents (engravings, lithographs, drawings), and a sound archive of Asturian music.

In fact, a visit to the Muséu del Pueblu d’Asturies—both inside the buildings and outside—is a truly delightful journey into Asturias’s past, from the distant past to the recent past. Furthermore, its extensive and immaculately maintained green space means you’ll find yourself in a museum unlike any other, where nature is very much present.

7 ethnographic museums for an entertaining and educational journey into the past!