Skip to content

Weekly What's On: 24 to 30th March

Author
Alison Hilton
Published Date
March 24, 2014

You can find full details of all our forthcoming events and activities in our What’s On and MERL Families guides, which are now available from the Museum or to download from our website You can also see all events on our online calendar

 Selecting objects#MuseumWeek
Join us this week for a virtual event over on Twitter. MERL is joining museums across Europe in a week-long @TwitterUK campaign. Look out for tweets on a different theme each day. On Monday we’re giving an insight into a ‘Dayinthelife’ of staff and volunteers at the Museum. Tomorrow there’ll be a ‘guess the object’ quiz as part of #MuseumMastermind. We’d love to hear your #MuseumMemories on Wednesday – tell us about your visits to MERL! You can also get involved by tweeting questions for our Curators which we will answer on Friday (#AskACurator) and if you’re visiting this week, why not take a selfie and tweet it on Saturday using the #MuseumSelfies hashtag!

 

 

Guided tourGuided tour
Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 3-3.45pm
Free, booking advisable
Let our fully trained tour guides tell you the stories behind the objects on display and visit the object store to see MERL’s hidden treasures

 

 

 

Rural reads library booksRural Reads book club
Thursday, 27th March, 5.30-7pm
Free, drop-in (£1.50 for tea & biscuits)
Join us to discuss this month’s book ‘The Last Runaway’ by Tracy Chevalier and bring along your suggestions for our next ‘rural read’
For details visit the Rural Reads web page

 

 

Copy of H&P comic cuts - compressedToddler time – biscuit special!
Friday 28th March, 10-11am,
£2 per child, drop-in
Suitable for families with children aged 2-4
Come along to the Museum with your little ones and enjoy rhymes, songs and craft activities.
We are launching our Village Fete Biscuit Bake-Off competition at Toddler Time this week! Bring along home-baked biscuits and Andrew Palmer, a descendant of the famous Reading biscuit family will taste them! Try biscuits baked from an old Huntley & Palmers recipe and decorate biscuits with lots of sugary things!! Join us for this special event – free entry for anyone bringing homemade biscuits!

 

Guy Baxter at The MERL
Author
Joe
/
Published Date
September 30, 2026

Leadership changes: Guy Baxter becomes our new Director

Guy Baxter becomes the new Director of the University of Reading’s Museums and Collections, as Kate Arnold-Forster and Isabel Hughes depart.

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.