Discovering the Landscape #13: From garden space to masterplan
Seminar series round up: Written by Claire Wooldridge, Project Senior Library Assistant: Landscape Institute Our captivating landscape inspired seminar series has drawn to an end. We’re delighted the series has been so well attended; a testament to the speakers and to the fascinating subject matter. If you attended any of the talks (or were unable to) and want to […]
Sew Engaging: Jane visits the Aman Group in Slough
Aman Group is a women’s only community group who meet at Manor Park Community Centre in Slough to learn from each other in friendship and participate in exercise, awareness sessions, health and beauty ideas and much more. In 2014, Sloughroots ‘Remedies-Remembered’ participants from the Aman Group got involved in a Quilt Project when they visited […]
Research post: X marks the spot
We’ve all been very busy researching nine new galleries for the Our Country Lives redevelopment, covering everything from wagon construction to rural fashion. What caught our eye recently, however, was a one-way, horse-drawn Butterfly plough. While delving into our accession files for its measurements we found this interesting little map tucked into a sheaf of […]
International Women's Day: The Women's Land Army
To celebrate International Women’s Day, University of Reading student Dylan Doran has been exploring the collection of Women’s Land Army objects here at the Museum. The Women’s Land Army (WLA) was created in 1915 to help farmers cope with the shortage of male labour as a result of the First World War. It was brought back […]
Family feedback
During February half term we invited families to see how the museum has changed since we closed and to find out about our plans. Alison Hilton, Marketing Officer explains how the family forum events were a great opportunity to try out some ideas for activities and get feedback from family visitors too. We didn’t realise […]
"I read an interesting book about…"
In this post Project Officer Felicity Williams explains how she has amassed huge amounts of specialist knowledge by reading some very obscure books in the name of research. My work on the Our Country Lives museum redevelopment has involved a lot of research – using collections but also MERL’s wonderful archive and library. Apparently, in […]
Sew Engaging! The first 'man stitch'
In this week’s Sew Engaging! project update, Jane visits Cotswold Woollen Weavers at Filkins and gets the first ‘man stitch’ It was dark. I got up this morning and lit the wood burner, glad of my sweater, the brown one I was wearing to launch the ‘Sew Engaging’ project at the Riverside Inn on Valentine’s […]
Our Country Lives update: Bringing our wagons down to earth
Alongside finalising gallery layouts, coming up with exciting ideas for interactive displays and filling in foundations for our extensions, our biggest update for you this week is the removal of our wagons from their monorail. We managed to finish the job in one day with the help of a specialist removal company, a fork-lift truck […]
Volunteers' Voice: Student Volunteering Week
We celebrate Student Volunteering Week with a post by Katie Wise who talks about the benefits of volunteering and the opportunities that her experience at MERL has brought. As a student on a humanities course, one thing I have a lot of is time. What’s a good way to spend it? Instead of pigging out watching […]
Discovering the Landscape #12: Brenda Colvin
Written by Claire Wooldridge, Project Senior Library Assistant: Landscape Institute Brenda Colvin (1897-1981) was a founder member of the Institute of Landscape Architects and its first female president (elected in 1951). In anticipation of FOLAR’s (Friends of the Landscape Library and Archive at Reading) study day focusing on Brenda Colvin here at MERL on Saturday 21 March, […]