The history of the servants’ ball
The servants’ ball has had a long tradition in the country house estates of Britain and only really died out after the Second World War.
The lives of sheep and cows
How do we tell new stories about cows, sheep, farmers and their lives led together? Read about a project that has been doing just that.
Confessions of an award-nominated Museum Studies teacher
Meet Dr Rhi Smith, whose work in bringing the University of Reading’s museum collections to students and staff alike has been nominated for a Times Higher Education award!
The reading room is home!
We are pleased to announce that our reading room will be reopening in its usual space from Tuesday 23rd November 2021.
51 Voices: Writing Voices
Read our latest roundup of 51 Voices, where we focus on the writing produced through partnership with poets, University students, and a local school.
A week at The MERL: our reflections on COP26
As COP26 unfolded in Glasgow, a range of activity was underway at The MERL, bringing together many different approaches to the issue of the changing climate and its impact on rural livelihoods and wellbeing.
Night of the living rural history collection
For Halloween, discover four objects from our collection that would provide perfect utility and inspiration for any rural villain.
51 Voices: A very special collaboration
Learn about the creative collaborations produced with a range of different communities as part of 51 Voices, our 70th anniversary celebrations.
51 Voices: Work, work, work
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 […]
Uncovering LGBTQ+ rural histories in archives
Join The MERL’s Collections Researcher Tim Jerrome as he shares the challenges he faced in finding the lives and stories of LGBTQ+ people in our archive for our July 2021 exhibition: Queer Constellations. Please be aware that this post contains terminology used to describe LGBTQ+ people in the past, and may be offensive or upsetting […]