Monthly Gallery Tours – April

Curator of MERL Collections, Dr Ollie Douglas, will be joined by a different specialist for each of these monthly tours. Together they will take visitors on a short conversational guided trip through the galleries approaching our collection from a different perspective that reflects the guest speaker’s expertise, ensuring you’ll learn something new every time.

Each tour will last about 45 minutes and will culminate in a pop-up display or an opportunity to peek behind the scenes. At the end of the session there’ll be a chance to ask questions and to chat with Ollie and his guest.

1 April: Rachel Riddell – Information & Engagement Manager at The Mills Archive

This month, Ollie will mill about briefly in The MERL’s Wagon Walk, where he’ll be joined by Rachel Riddell, Information and Engagement Manager at the Mills Archive Trust. After glancing at a handful of items that illustrate how produce is processed and finds its way to our plate, they will then take a short walk over to The Mills Archive (The MERL to Watlington Street). Here Rachel will introduce us to a wealth of other archives that help us to examine histories of renewable energy, food production and sovereignty, and how to save and safeguard an iconic heritage mill.

Please note: this tour will last longer than the usual 1 hour. We are set to finish at 12.45pm. Ollie and Rachel will walk the group across  to The Mills Archive which will take approximately 7 minutes. If you need to travel by car, please let us know in advance by emailing merlevents@reading.ac.uk and we will do our best to ensure parking is available at The Mills Archive.