War Child
The MERL is very excited to announce the publication of War Child, an online ‘mixed-media book’ which explores our Evacuee Archive from a fascinating new angle. In this visually stunning work, Teresa Murjas, Associate Professor in the Department of Film, Theatre & Television at the University of Reading, and alumnus and film-maker James Rattee have woven […]
Food takes first prize at the Berkshire Show
Science engagement officer, Robyn Hopcroft, gives a recap of a busy weekend for The MERL at the Royal County of Berkshire Show. Photography by Anna Bruce for First Food Residency. I don’t think there’s anything quite like the Royal Berkshire Show. It’s a weird and wonderful melting pot of British culture. In amongst dancing sheep, […]
Discovering the Landscape: Preparation, progress and preservation – 3 years on
Plans, papers, press cuttings and publications…. we have spent a busy three years working on the Landscape Institute collections here at MERL. Alongside continuing to work on the collections to make them available, we are now looking to encourage use, awareness and engagement with our rich and varied landscape heritage collections. What have we achieved? […]
Ladybird books needed!
Do you have any Ladybird books at home that you no longer want to keep or that your children no longer read? Would you like to help contribute to a display in the new galleries at The MERL? We are looking for Ladybird books to form part of a duplicate set of the books which we will use […]
Pledge your apples!
Do you have an apple tree? Do you hate to see rotten apples on the ground going to waste? We have a solution!! At our Grand Opening Festival on October 22nd, Richard Paget from ‘My Apple Juice’ will be pressing apples into delicious juice. Richard is on a mission to reduce food waste and bring communities […]
Discovering the Landscape: landscape research bursaries available
This year, thanks to generous funding from the Landscape Institute, we are pleased to offer bursaries to encourage use and engagement with our varied and fascinating landscape collections. Read more about our Landscape Institute collection here, including the collections of Geoffrey Jellicoe, Sylvia Crowe and Brenda Colvin. See a full list of our collections here. […]
In the Garden: Reading Tree Wardens and MERL
It’s not every day that you spend the morning looking at trees, but recently a group of MERL staff did just that. Looking for information to be able to create interpretation in the gardens, we had called upon the expertise of the Reading Tree Wardens (http://www.readingtreewardens.org.uk/). So on a gloriously sunny day back in July, […]
Discovering the Landscape: From London traffic to an Italian Prisoner of War camp
Over the course of a large scale cataloguing project, many hundreds of items pass through your hands. Since acquiring the library and archive of the Landscape Institute in late 2013, we have made nearly 2500 books available to readers here at MERL. Added to this figure are metres of journals and pamphlets – and this is […]
Cricket farming Q&A with Newtri Foods (Part 2)
This is the second and final part of a Q&A with Matt Grant and Matt Hardy – Co-founders of Newtri Foods. Newtri Foods aims to be one of the first companies in the UK dedicated to the farming of crickets and the creation of cricket-based products (flour, protein bars and whole crickets) exclusively for human […]
Cricket farming Q&A with Newtri Foods (Part 1)
The founders of Newtri Foods talk to science engagement officer, Robyn Hopcroft, about cricket farming in Part 1 of a Q&A about their edible insect business. Edible insects have been touted as the next big thing in food. Even the United Nations has recognised edible insects as a “promising alternative for the conventional production of […]