Friday Fledglings – Online Special
Hello, everyone! This week, because the museum is closed, we’ll be doing Friday Fledglings a little differently. Rather than meeting in our lovely garden (which we miss very dearly), the brilliant Friday Fledglings team have sent us several fantastic things for kids and their grown-ups to do at home instead! Firstly, Charlotte received a lovely […]
We can’t believe we get to do this with chickens
Written by Rhiannon Watkinson – Audience Development Project Officer We all know those conversations you have at work – especially when you work in a museum – where you can’t quite believe what you are being asked to be involved with. It went like this: “There’s a great new project that we’d like you to […]
The MERL Test Bed: Germination!
The MERL Test Bed is used to test scientific ideas and hypotheses, with the environmental data of the bed communicated to the Internet of Things. The Bed was originally made in a Wellcome Trust-funded project and in collaboration with rLab, Reading’s Hackspace. This year University of Reading Soil Science PhD students Marijke Struijk and Harriet Robson […]
Growing Communities: 3 Years of Forging Histories at The MERL
Over the past four years the MERL has been out in the community and making new links thanks to our Heritage Lottery Fund project Our Country Lives. Phillippa Heath (Audience Development Project Manager) reflects back on three years of fruitful collaborations and partnerships and chooses eight hidden gems… I must admit, trying to identify the highlights of three […]
A tractor you can climb on!
Written by Isabel Hughes, Curator The MERL has a wonderful collection of tractors. They range from a 1917 Titan, manufactured in the USA by the International Harvester Company and typical of tractors imported to Britain to help with the war effort, to a 1930s Fordson Model “N” petrol and paraffin tractor that we use to […]
It started with a sheep
Written by Audience Development Project Officer, Rhiannon Watkinson. It all started with a large plastic sheep. Not the most conventional opening to a story, I grant you! In fact I should say it started with a large plastic sheep, a brand new museum, a shepherd’s hut and a fabulous volunteer. What do these things have […]
‘The Poetry Survives’: Lindsay Anderson’s ‘Foot and Mouth’
Written by Jack Thacker, Poet in residence. Two months into my time as residency at the MERL, and I’ve discovered a wide range of objects and archival documents to inspire my poetry. The process, so far, has been one of gathering: which hand tool might prompt a poem, which diary or artwork can I mine for […]
Mental health in the countryside
Our Wellbeing and the Countryside display is on until October 31, and was launched to coincide with World Mental Health Day on 10 October. The display is the culmination of research in the archives at both the MERL and the University of Reading Special Collections, interviews exploring experiences of living and working in the countryside, and a consultation […]
Beekeeping, not just a hobby
Science engagement volunteer, Eilish Menzies, considers beekeeping and the role that it plays in food production. Walking through the MERL galleries you can see the crucial role bees play in past and present global food security. By simply taking a stroll through the collection, you can really get a sense of the progressive steps that […]
Going digital: Reading Museum and the MERL team up
The digital world is not coming, it is already here. In fact, it has been here for some time. Online shopping is king, Google knows where you live, almost everyone has a smartphone and the President-elect speaks primarily through Twitter. But being able to use smartphones, graphic software, websites, social media, apps, tablets, Windows, Macs and […]