Tremendous trees & the science of surveying
Earlier in the year, Project Archivist, Nancy Fulford went on a training event organised by RE:LEAF in London, a partnership campaign led by the Mayor to protect the capital’s trees and encourage individual Londoners, businesses and organisations to plant more trees. Nancy discovered that there are several national and local initiatives to survey trees. Inspired by her […]
Volunteers' Voice #14: Volunteers and Our Country Lives
Written by Rob Davies, Volunteer Coordinator. As you will know, we have recently been awarded a significant grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund for our redevelopment project Our Country Lives. I do not exaggerate when I say that volunteers made an enormous contribution to this success and they will play a very important role in […]
Weekly what's on: 11 to 17 August
You can find details of all our forthcoming events at on our What’s On pages, but here’s what’s happening at MERL this week… Events Summer holiday family fun! For details of all our events and activities for families this summer, download our new MERL families guide or visit the Family events page. As well as the ‘Make and takes’ and workshops […]
Coopering in the MERL collections
Since May I’ve been working on the Reading Engaged project to research content for the new galleries which will form part of MERL’s redevelopment project, Our Country Lives. True to my passions as ever, I’ve been taking the opportunity to focus on researching craft, as we’re hoping to dedicate a large part of one of […]
4 years of Rural Reads
Our July meeting marked the fourth anniversary of the Rural Reads book club. For four years we have been reading books with a rural theme or setting that have spanned countries and historic periods, covering farming practices, rural lives and countryside themes. The rural theme has not been at all restrictive and the books we have […]
A stitch in time: Conservation of 1951 wall hangings begins
Written by Adam Koszary, Project Officer for Our Country Lives. Today, a very exciting part of Our Country Lives began – in fact, it is almost the starting pistol to the project! Accredited conservator Kate Gill will begin conservation work on two of our Michael O’Connell wall hangings. These are huge, 7×3.5m pieces of textile art […]
Weekly what's on: August 4th to 10th
You can find details of all our forthcoming events at on our What’s On pages, but here’s what’s happening at MERL this week… Events Summer holiday family fun! For details of all our events and activities for families this summer, download our new MERL families guide or visit the Family events page. As well as the ‘Make and takes’ and workshops […]
Weekly what's on: July 28th to August 3rd
You can find details of all our forthcoming events at on our What’s On pages, but here’s what’s happening at MERL this week… Events The Arts of Peace: poetry in the garden Monday 28th July, 6.30-8.30pm MERL garden (or indoors if the event of bad weather) £3 per person. There are still tickets left, but to […]
Inspiring Creativity with Objects: Collections-based activities for families
During her time at MERL as Public Programmes Manager, covering maternity leave, Phillippa Heath has introduced some some great new workshops enabling families to get closer to our collections. In this post, Phillippa looks at how the positive reaction to the new sessions will influence our future planning for families… Whenever we plan a family […]
Weekly what's on: 22nd to 27th July
You can find full details of all our forthcoming events in our What’s On guides, which are now available from the Museum or to download from our website You can also see all events on our online calendar Guided tour Wednesdays, Saturdays & Sundays, 3-3.45pm Free, booking advisable Let our fully trained tour guides tell you the stories behind the […]