The Pueblo de Asturias Folk Museum was created in 1968. It comprises an area of 30,000 square metres that three buildings have been moved to: the 17th-century house of the Valdés family; the house of the González de la Vega family (bagpipe museum) and the Pavilion of Asturias at the 1992 World's Fair in Seville.
The grounds also house 18th- and 19th-century hórreos and paneras (raised granaries-cum-storehouses). There are also several skittle alleys to play the different variants of this game that exist in Asturias, an exhibition of agricultural implements, a one-storey peasant cottage characteristic of central Asturias, and a pond that is a relic of the marshlands that predominated around the mouth of the River Piles.
The purpose of the museum is to preserve, display and disseminate the material, graphic and oral testimonies that enable a better knowledge of traditional Asturian society while also preserving its memory. The museum has an extensive collection of ethnographic materials, graphic documents (engravings, lithographs, drawings), and an audio library of Asturian music.
A collection of bagpipes from North Africa, Eastern and Central Europe and especially from France, the UK and the Iberian peninsula are on display in the Bagpipe Museum, located in the country house, with running balcony included, of the González de la Vega family, which was built in 1757 and originally stood in Serin (Gijón/Xixón).
Valdés House contains a permanent exhibition entitled "Photography in Asturias, 1850-1965", which shows the evolution of photography and Asturian society in those years. It also houses temporary exhibitions and a documentation centre on Asturian photography open to researchers which currently boasts more than 200,000 photos.
The Peasant Cottage is a model of a dwelling widespread among peasants in central Asturias. It consists of a kitchen, two rooms, a stable with hayloft and a porch. All the furniture, fixtures,fittings and tools correspond to those of a dwelling dating from the second half of the 19th century.
