Sew Engaging!
Our new ‘Sew Engaging!’ outreach project has been launched on the banks of the River Thames at Lechlade, Gloucestershire. The project has been designed by textile artist, Jane McCutchan, and funded by The Ashley Family Foundation. Jane holds a Barnett Bequest Fellowship at MERL, and a doctorate from the University of Reading, and uses our collections in […]
Your country lives and your museum
Assistant Curator, Dr Ollie Douglas traces the Museum’s history of building links with communities and invites readers to get involved in our current project In the 1950s, when the Museum of English Rural Life was first established, countryside people were experiencing a period of massive change. Of course, the lives of people who live and […]
Volunteers voice: Meet Rhiannon
Hello, I’m Rhiannon Watkinson the new Assistant Volunteer Coordinator here at MERL. Having been in the post a little over a month now, and no longer getting quite so lost in the maze that is the museum, it seems time to introduce myself. I’m a Reading local and have just returned to the area after […]
Discovering the Landscape #11: Great new seminar series
Written by Claire Wooldridge, Project Senior Library Assistant: Landscape Institute Great news! Our fascinating new seminar series entitled ‘Discovering the Landscape’ kicks off on Tuesday 10 February with an overview of the collections (‘From garden space to masterplan: The Landscape Institute collections at MERL’) with our archivist Caroline Gould and landscape architect Annabel Downs. In 2013, MERL received […]
Discovering the Landscape #10: Fascinating rare books in the LI collection
Written by Claire Wooldridge, Project Senior Library Assistant: Landscape Institute This months ‘Discovering the Landscape’ looks at some interesting new additions to our MERL Library Reserve collection, drawing upon links between the Landscape Institute collections and our existing MERL and Special Collections. We received several fascinating rare books from the library of the Landscape Institute. Here we […]
Democracy Day: Parliamentary Firsts
Project Officer, Felicity McWilliams, spotted an opportunity to share some of the research she’s been doing for the new galleries… Today is BBC Democracy Day, the 750th anniversary of the first ever parliament of elected officials at Westminster. Known as the ‘January Parliament’, it was called in 1265 by the Earl of Leicester, Simon de […]
What have we been up to? An Our Country Lives update
A common reaction from people when we tell them that our galleries are closed is ‘Does that mean you’re all on holiday?’ Well, we’ve actually been intensely busy behind the scenes since November creating the new MERL! Here’s a round-up of some of the things we’ve been doing: 1. While the galleries have been closed, our […]
Vlog blog: How many curators..?
So how many curators does it take to run the University of Reading Museums and Collections? Well, surprisingly few actually, as our new vlog channel sets out to demonstrate! Tramping round rural Berkshire, delving into the MERL basket collection, and serenading the Special collections librarian: since the launch of our new video blogging channel last term, […]
Folklore & Storytelling: MERL and the Pitt Rivers Museum
Ollie Douglas, our Assistant Curator, gave a gallery talk at the Pitt Rivers Museum recently and naturally homed in on objects relating to rural life. Here’s what he found… I recently had the enjoyable experience of giving a gallery talk at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, on the subject of folklore and object collecting. […]
The Great University of Reading Museums and Special Collections #12off
The Great University of Reading Museums and Special Collections #12off: It doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue, does it, but the idea for a MERL #12daysofChristmas series of tweets emerged in one of our weekly social media meetings before Christmas, and our colleagues at the Ure Museum and the Special Collections jumped at the chance […]