Museo de la Naturaleza

The Nature Museum of Cantabria is housed in an 18th-century mansion-palace, in the Cantabrian village of Carrejo which is located 1.5 kilometres from Cabezón de la Sal.

The building has two floors and a gabled roof. Some time later a chapel was added to the palace at the western end, topped by a baroque belfry. It is currently used as a conference and audiovisual room and sometimes houses temporary exhibitions. It also has a garden in which trees typical of the Autonomous Community are planted.

The mansion belonged to the Ygareda and Barreda-Cos family, whose descendants created the Ygareda Foundation to change the old family residence into a cultural centre. The agreement with the Government of Cantabria led to the transfer of the mansion, which was renovated in 1989 and the Museum was created on it in 1990 and restored in 2003, with the collaboration of the Social Work of Caja Cantabria. This building had been declared an Asset of Cultural Interest in 1984.

It consists of four exhibition rooms of fauna and flora of the Cantabrian region as well as a section of thematic temporary exhibitions. Most of them consist of naturalized animals. Some pieces were made by José María Benedito, a member of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Madrid and by J. Patón. The oldest date from 1913.