Explore Your Archive: 16 to 22 November
Next week is the launch of this year’s Explore Your Archive campaign, which is coordinated by The National Archives and the Archives and Records Association (UK and Ireland). The Explore Your Archive campaign is encouraging people to discover the stories, the facts, the places and the people that are at the heart of our communities. Archives across […]
Rural Reads Review
This October we read Common Ground by Rob Cowen; it was different from our usual rural reads and offered a fresh perspective. Common Ground is a fusion of biopic and nature writing, expertly woven together to take the reader through a piece of land that we all have experience and knowledge of; those edge lands […]
Volunteers' Voice: day trippers
One of the ways we recognise the efforts of our volunteers each year is to organise a special day out. A couple of weeks ago the team went on a trip to Wales (unsurprisingly, since our Welsh colleagues, Rob Davies, Volunteer Coordinator and Rhiannon Watkinson, will never miss an opportunity to head down the M4!) This […]
Using history to help patients reminisce at Royal Berkshire Hospital
Written by Phillippa Heath, Audience Development Project Manager One important aspect of the Our Country Lives Activity Plan is the strengthening of links with our close neighbours the Royal Berkshire Hospital. As our Audience Development Project Manager, I’ve been involved in one particular aspect of this partnership: an innovative reminiscence project using the MERL collections as […]
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 […]
Discovering the Landscape #20: James Corner speaks at joint MERL and Landscape Institute Annual Lectures
Written by Claire Wooldridge (Project Librarian: Landscape Institute) Yesterday evening cutting edge landscape architect James Corner – renowned for designing New York’s much loved High Line and the South Park Plaza of London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park – delivered a fascinating lecture in the University of Reading’s Great Hall. This was a highly successful joint […]
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 […]
Volunteers' Voice: Young Volunteers programme
As part of the Our Country Lives Activity plan we have a Young Volunteer’s initiative which aims to encourage young people (14-18) to volunteer at the Museum. We’re working with external partners such as Reading College and Berkshire Youth to achieve this. During the exterior building works the garden was turned into a builder’s village! The […]
Rural Reads reviews: The Bees by Laline Paull
Rob Davies reviews our latest rural read. This September we read The Bees by Laline Paull. The Bees is set within a bee hive and tells the story of Flora 717 a sanitation bee who rises up through the ranks. The Bees has many tropes of a classic dystopian novel: totalitarian regime, secret police, oppression […]
Rip Roaring Reading Room News: Full opening from Monday 28 September 2015
Great news everyone! We have extended our Reading Room opening hours. Up until now, although you have been able to visit our wonderful Reading Room Monday-Friday, 9-5, we have operated a restricted service on a Monday. This meant that, on a Monday, we opened later (10am) and we were unable to retrieve material from our […]