Discovering the Landscape #14: 1500 books now catalogued!

Written by Claire Wooldridge, Project Senior Library Assistant: Landscape Institute 1500 items from the Landscape Institute library have now been integrated into our MERL library collection.  These items include books and pamphlets, which have all been cleaned, processed, catalogued and labelled and are available in our open access library.  A small number of rare books received from the Landscape Institute have […]

"I read an interesting book about…"

In this post Project Officer Felicity Williams explains how she has amassed huge amounts of specialist knowledge by reading some very obscure books in the name of research.  My work on the Our Country Lives museum redevelopment has involved a lot of research – using collections but also MERL’s wonderful archive and library. Apparently, in […]

Discovering the Landscape #10: Fascinating rare books in the LI collection

Written by Claire Wooldridge, Project Senior Library Assistant: Landscape Institute This months ‘Discovering the Landscape’ looks at some interesting new additions to our MERL Library Reserve collection, drawing upon links between the Landscape Institute collections and our existing MERL and Special Collections. We received several fascinating rare books from the library of the Landscape Institute.  Here we […]

Discovering the Landscape #9: 1000 books catalogued!

Written by Claire Wooldridge, Project Senior Library Assistant: Landscape Institute We are delighted to be able to say 1000 books from the Landscape Institute library have now been integrated into our MERL library collection.  Each book has been cleaned, processed, catalogued and labelled.  The books are available in our open access library.  A small number of rare books […]

Discovering the Landscape #7: Peter Shepheard

This month Peter Shepheard is the subject of our continuing series of blog posts about MERL’s acquisition of the archive and library of the Landscape Institute. Written by Claire Wooldridge, Landscape Institute Library Officer Sir Peter Shepheard (1913-2002) was an influential architect and landscape architect.  After training at the Liverpool School of Architecture, Shepheard moved […]

Discovering the Landscape #6: Susan and Geoffrey Jellicoe catalogues now available online!

Written by Claire Wooldridge, Landscape Institute Library Officer Drawings donated to the Landscape Institute by Geoffrey Jellicoe and the photographic collection of Susan Jellicoe are now catalogued and are available to search via our online catalogue and by collection in PDF format (Geoffrey Jellicoe, Susan Jellicoe). These fantastic collections cover landscape architecture and landscape history […]

Discovering the Landscape #5: Mawson’s ‘The art & craft of garden making’ (1900)

Written by Claire Wooldridge, Graduate Trainee Library Assistant As progress continues to integrate the library and archive of the Landscape Institute into our MERL collections, here’s a brief look at another of our favourite items: The art & craft of garden making by Thomas H. Mawson (London: B.T. Batsford, 1900) In his first book, Mawson […]

Discovering the landscape #3: Milner’s 'Landscape Gardening'

Written by Claire Wooldridge, Graduate Trainee Library Assistant As progress continues to integrate the library and archive of the Landscape Institute into our MERL collections, here’s a brief look at one of our favourite items: The art and practice of landscape gardening by Henry Ernest Milner (London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, And Co, 1890). Henry […]

Discovering the landscape #2 (Landscape Institute project update)

We have been so busy over the last couple of months that we almost forgot to let you know what we’ve been up to! Here’s our progress in pictures… A new library room has been created to accommodate the growing MERL library.  Over 500 books have been bib-checked for duplication across the University libraries, with […]

5 mins with…Claire Smith

Claire Smith is our Learning  Assistant and part of our Visitor Services team, so if you’ve been to MERL recently, you will probably have met her! This week she’s been busy preparing for the school holidays, and has learnt a new skill… What have you been working on this week? This week I’ve been working […]

  • Visit us

    Visit Us

    The Museum is now fully open, following a major redevelopment, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

    Free Admission

    The Museum of English Rural Life

    University of Reading

    Redlands Road

    Reading

    RG1 5EX

    Plan my visit