Wild Being: our Mentored Volunteering Programme
Find out how mentored volunteering at The MERL and Reading Museum helps more people access the benefits of volunteering.
Changing Perspectives in the Countryside: Mya-Rose Craig
As part of Changing Perspectives in the Countryside, we spoke with Dr Mya-Rose Craig about how she champions rural conservation and equality.
Widening Participation: exploring farming past and future
Read about our learning team’s recent work with Reading Girls’ School as part of our Widening Participation programme.
Discover Friday Fledglings at The MERL
Hear from Charlotte Allchin, who plans and delivers Friday Fledglings: our weekly outdoor learning sessions for under 5s.
Why travelling matters: engaging schools with our migration stories
Written by Phillippa Heath, Learning and Engagement Manager at The MERL. As part of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month 2021, we have been sharing collections at The MERL that connect to the histories of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people, including objects, archives, photography, art and library collections. These collections tell us so much about […]
People and Places: why The MERL is taking part in Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month
Throughout June, The MERL is celebrating Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month. Running since 2008, this month celebrates ‘the remarkable and immense contributions Gypsy, Roma and Traveller individuals and communities bring to wider society’. Its aim is to help tackle prejudice, challenge myths and amplify the voices of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers. To some readers, it […]
More Hidden Stories
Written by Sue Spiller, Cultural Commissioning Project Officer at The MERL. Since we told you about our Life Stories Project back in December we have been busy working in partnership with Age UK Berkshire and Younger People with Dementia to gather the stories of some of Reading’s older generation. Finding ourselves in lockdown again meant […]
51 Voices: of Mice and Museums
This January, The MERL embarked on 51 Voices, a new year-long project celebrating the Museum’s seventieth anniversary in 2021. Throughout the year, we will be working with a range of writers, artists and different communities to give contemporary voice to fifty-one objects and archives in The MERL collection connected in myriad ways to our founding year. In this […]
Hidden Stories
The MERL – so much more than simply galleries for people to visit…. The MERL prides itself in being part of the local Reading community beyond the walls of the museum. Recently we have had the opportunity to partner with Age UK Berkshire to take our collections to a whole new audience and we jumped […]
Superstitious in the countryside: ten British farming superstitions
Bedknobs and broomsticks, eels and bees. Discover rural superstitions evidenced in The Museum of English Rural Life collection and archive.