An Interview with: Nitisha (Part 2: Conservation)
Following last week’s interview with Nitisha about her work in the Special Collections archives, this week Whitney talks to her about her first role in conservation here at MERL. 1. What made you get involved with conservation? I started volunteering with Fred the Conservator here in the Conservation studio because I wanted to explore conservation. I […]
How we went viral: a good story, good luck and good friends
Written by Adam Koszary, Project Officer. It all started with a story that, five or ten years ago, would have remained within the four walls of the museum and gone no further: our assistant curator found a dead mouse in a Victorian mouse trap. The trap was behind a glass case in our store; it […]
How a mouse died in our Victorian mouse trap
If you’ve been on the internet for the past few days then you may have heard about the mouse which died in our Victorian mousetrap. We are very pleased and a little surprised to have gone viral, and since our original blog post have some updates on our rodent friend. For one thing, we think […]
155-year old mouse trap claims its latest victim
After logging onto their computers today, staff here at the MERL were greeted by an unusual email from the Assistant Curator: ‘There appears to be a dead mouse in this mousetrap…’ It began. ‘…which is not described as being there on the database.’ So, this retired rodent had managed to sneak past University of Reading […]
Plough Monday
Plough Monday falls on the first Monday after the twelfth night of Christmas, which is also the night of the Epiphany. It marks the beginning of the English agricultural year and when ploughmen traditionally returned to the fields to prepare the Spring crops. Still celebrated in some parts of the the north and east of […]
New acquisition supported by the Art Fund
The Museum of English Rural Life has acquired 6 engravings for the collection, by print-maker Stanley Anderson RA (1884-1966). The acquisition was supported with the help of the Art Fund. We were the successful recipients of an Art Fund grant, enabling us to purchase the artworks at auction in December 2015. The Museum acquired a number […]
Consuming the fat cows
Livestock portraiture depicting prize animals (cattle, oxen, pigs and sheep) began to appear in the mid-eighteenth century. We derive much historical value from these commissioned paintings through their collective recording of the process of English livestock improvement. It was a period in which livestock was being altered from medieval to modern purposes. In a time […]
Our Country Lives update
Can you believe it’s Autumn already? Since our last update in May we’ve had an extremely busy Summer finishing our research, laying cement and visiting farmers. Here’s a round-up: 1. We’ve had exciting new research into our objects, such as this shepherd’s surprising connection to Thomas Beecham of Beecham’s pills. 2. We’ve finished the building of our new […]
My favourite object: the Shaplands and Petter sideboard
As she comes to the end of her internship (where did those 6 weeks go?!) Lisa has discovered an object from in the MERL collections which has special personal significance… Being proud to call myself a Devonian (I moved to Reading for university), I was determined when picking out an object from the collections to find something relating […]
Focus on collections: Bikes & Cycling
Our Social Media and Collections intern, Lisa, has been researching bike-related materials in our collection to coincide with Bike Week… This week it’s Bike Week which aims to promote cycling, encouraging people to make it part of their everyday lives. Not only it is it great fun and a healthier way to travel to work, it’s […]