The Cheese Curry Experiment
It is difficult to know quite how to categorise this post by Project Officer, Felicity McWilliams, but it’s all in the name of research for one of our new galleries…promise! Given that it is, apparently, British Cheese Week, today seems an appropriate time to share with you the results of a little experiment I carried […]
Volunteers' Voice: Shreeya & Rasmi
Today’s Volunteers’ Week post is by Shreeya & Rasmi, students from a local secondary school, who volunteered to help us brainstorm ideas for the new museum. They ranked different types of interactives, compiled a possible teenagers’ book club reading list and a list of national days related to the museum that we could highlight on social media… […]
Volunteer's Voice: Sophie
This week is Volunteers’ Week and we are celebrating the wonderful work done by our volunteers and thanking them for all the hours and effort they put into making the museum the best it can possibly be. To showcase our brilliant volunteers every day this week we will be posting blogs written by the volunteers […]
Volunteers' Voice: Lisa
Today’s Volunteers’ Week post is by Lisa, who’s been volunteering at MERL since 2012… I joined MERL as a Volunteer in 2012 in order to gain some experience in the museum sector. At the time I was studying for my BA and it was MERL that influenced me to study my MFA Fine Art at the […]
Volunteers' Voice: Alessandra
This week is Volunteers’ Week and we are celebrating the wonderful work done by our volunteers and thanking them for all the hours and effort they put into making the museum the best it can possibly be. To showcase our brilliant volunteers every day this week we will be posting blogs written by the volunteers […]
Volunteers' Voice: Celebrating Volunteers Week!
Assistant Volunteer Coordinator, Rhiannon Watkinson introduces this week’s celebration of volunteers at MERL… At The Museum of English Rural Life we could not function without the hard work and dedication of our amazing volunteers. Around 120 volunteers ensure that the museum not only runs smoothly but is a place full of passion and friendly faces. […]
Sew Engaging at the Rising Sun
Dr Jane McCutchan is back in Reading for the latest stage of the Sew Engaging project… Drop in at Rising Sun Arts Centre, near the Royal Berks Hospital on a Thursday morning, and you are close to Heaven. Eleven o’clock and the clients have stopped for a tea break. The chair under Dennis (not his real […]
Discovering the Landscape #15: The Chelsea Flower Show
Written by Adam Lines, Reading Room Supervisor As the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is on (19-23 May 2015) is on – what better time to delve into our Landscape Institute collection for some garden inspiration! These beautiful images show a Sculpture Garden for Chelsea Flower Show designed by Preben Jakobsen (1934-2012) in 1982. Preben Jakobsen was an award […]
Rural Reads review: Far from the Madding Crowd
As the Rural Reads Plus book group is now taking inspiration from the University of Reading’s Special Collections as well as the Museum of English Rural Life, our recent reviews have been published on the Special Collections blog, but this one takes us back to our roots…! Rob Davies, Volunteer Coordinator, is clearly a fan! […]
What have we been up to? Our Country Lives Top 10 #2
We’ve been very busy over the last few months, so here’s our latest Top 10 run-down of what’s been happening… 1. Bringing the wagons down from their overhead positions was a delicate and pretty scary job for our conservator and team of specialists. See how it went. 2. We’ve grown! The extension to our welcome area now […]