Welcome to MERL news

Author
Alison Hilton
Published Date
March 6, 2012

Welcome to the MERL news blog, where you will find stories relating to the Museum’s collections, projects, events and activities. It will be a place to keep up to date with what’s happening at the Museum on a regular basis.

The posts will be written by the Marketing Officer, with contributions also from our Curators, Archivists, Learning Manager, and Visitor Services team which should help give an overview of life across the whole museum.

We are new to this, so the kinds of posts may evolve as we learn what our readers are intersested in, so please let us know what you think and help us to get it right!

Richard Watts with a tractor and film reels
Author
Joe
/
Published Date
September 23, 2026

Beyond nostalgia

How do we help audiences of today encounter films from the past?

Friday Fledglings brand logo – a cartoon bird jumps through autumnal leaves
Author
Joe
/
Published Date
September 17, 2026

A new Friday Fledglings brand has hatched

An iconic under-5s group deserves iconic design.

Author
Joe
/
Published Date
September 15, 2026

Digitising the Fowler archives

Learn about our project to improve access to our Fowler archives of engine drawings, including 7,171 new drawings in our database.

Robert Davey
Author
Joe
/
Published Date
September 1, 2026

Remembering Robert Davey

All of us at The Museum of English Rural Life are deeply saddened by the recent passing of Robert Davey – a valued member of our community.

Merle the bat, asleep in a glove
Author
Joe
/
Published Date
August 19, 2026

So we found a live bat in our galleries (again)

Seven years after we gave a bat a library card, another bat has visited The Museum of English Rural Life.

three glass pint milk bottles
Author
Madeleine
/
Published Date
June 15, 2026

Milking time: Bacteriology and pasteurisation

Explore the University of Reading’s role in dairying research into milk pasteurisation.

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