The Building Connections project

Learn about how the Building Connections project has enabled us to explore and share underrepresented stories from England’s rural history.

Introducing Space to Think: Rural Wellbeing, our latest student exhibition

Written by Dr Rhi Smith, Director of Museum Studies, University of Reading. How do you create a museum exhibition when you cannot get into the museum? Planning your first museum exhibition is tough experience at the best of times. Doing it online during a global pandemic takes that to another level. Even so, within the […]

Mapping the lantern slides

Dr Katrina Navickas is the 2020/21 Open Spaces Society Fellow at The MERL. In this blog, Katrina outlines her work and research in mapping the locations of over 1,000 lantern slides in the Open Spaces Society collection. The Open Spaces Society was founded in 1865 to campaign for and preserve commons, footpaths and open spaces […]

Working (the land) 9 to 5

Dolly Parton has never been to The MERL, but that’s not to say our collection isn’t filled with objects related to Dolly and her songs.

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    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

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