Timeline

Origin and history

The Blois Museum of Natural History comes from a major donation made in 1910. That year, the Société d'histoire naturel du Loir-et-Cher gave its collections to the City of Blois, allowing the creation of the museum. These objects, which constitute the bulk of current exhibitions, complement a small percentage of elements from the old municipal collections dating from about 1850. The museum is housed in a building with a marked religious past: a convent founded in the 13th century by Dominican monks, profoundly redesigned during the French Revolution.

In 1940, the museum closed its doors and its collections were moved to the heights of Blois Castle, where precarious conservation conditions seriously damaged some of the objects. It was not until 1981 that the municipality of Blois decided to revive the institution. The collections are then gradually transferred to their current location, rue Anne de Bretagne. Today, the museum is particularly distinguished by its collections of geology and paleontology, classified in the National Inventory of Geological Heritage, while offering a representative panorama of local biodiversity.

The building that houses the museum itself bears a rich history. Former Dominican convent of the thirteenth century, it has undergone multiple transformations over the centuries, especially during the Revolution. This dual dimension — scientific by its collections and historical by its architecture — gives the museum a special place in Blois' heritage. The collections, although marked by the hazards of their history, remain a valuable testimony to local efforts to preserve and study the natural heritage since the 19th century.

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