The Museum of English Rural Life

New exhibition: 'Collecting the countryside: 20th century rural cultures'

The new temporary exhibition at MERL is now open to the public. Collecting the countryside: 20th century rural cultures is largely comprised of objects drawn from the Museum’s recent Collecting Cultures project. This ran from 2008 until earlier this year and involved the Museum’s curatorial team selecting  items that connected in some meaningful way with  the twentieth century countryside […]

"Strictly Fab" – Len Goodman joins MERL for Farmyard Fun

written by Guy Baxter, Archivist. Last Thursday was quite a day at MERL, with over 500 visitors enjoying Farmyard Fun with Miller’s Ark, who brought us their sheep, goats, pigs, geese, ducks (with their own paddling pool!) and colourful rare-breed chickens. It was also great to see so many visitors having fun with the animals […]

Our Country Lives update: MERL goes to Stockholm

written by Adam Koszary, Project Officer for Our Country Lives. One thing I never expected from working at a museum of English rural life was the opportunity to visit Sweden. However, with some Erasmus funding me and five colleagues did just that, and went to Stockholm to see one of the world’s most successful open air […]

Our Country Lives: Supporting You Day

written by Adam Koszary, Project Officer for Our Country Lives. My mind has been focused on one particular question since arriving at MERL: how do you display rural life? Other equally pertinent questions for us are: Who is our audience? How can we appeal to wider groups? What is the core message of the Museum […]

MERL's new blogging venture

written by Kate Arnold-Forster, Director of MERL and Head of the University Museums & Special Collections Service. After months of thinking, training courses, persuading and planning, (and a good deal of procrastinating) we have finally taken the plunge and decided to launch ‘Our Country Lives – the new MERL blog’.  Mainly through the efforts of Alison […]

HRH The Duke of Gloucester unveils landmark Land Rover at University Museum

MERL was delighted to welcome HRH The Duke of Gloucester on Thursday 21 March who unveiled the Museum’s latest acquisition, a stunning example of an early Series 1 Land Rover. Read the press release on the University of Reading website Sign up for our newsletter Get blogs, collections news, and shop updates straight to your inbox. Email […]

Snow Update – Sunday 20th Jan

We’re open as usual, despite the weather, so please do come and see us! We’ll be opening at 2pm, but the snow is getting heavier, so we may need to leave earlier than usual to make sure that our staff can get home safely. Please call us on 0118 378 8660 to make sure that we’re […]

Snow Update – Saturday 19th Jan

We’re open as usual, despite the weather, so please do come and see us! We’ll be here from 2-4:30pm. The MERL car park is still very snowy, but you can park down the side of the museum in Acacias Road, which has been gritted. The buses are also running, the 9, 20, 20a and 21 will […]


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