Weekly What's on: Sat 25 to Fri 31 Oct

Archives and texts seminar series:
Travels in a publisher’s archive: John Murray and nineteenth-century travel publishing
Dr Innes M. Keighren (Geography, Royal Holloway) 
Monday 27 October 
5-6pm 
Conference room, Museum of English Rural Life*

For details of this seminar, read the latest post on the ‘Archives and Texts’ blog

Our Country Lives display

Saturday 25th to Friday 31st October (Closed Monday 27th)
Normal opening times
Don’t miss the last chance to visit MERL before we close for redevelopment! See a display of plans and pictures of our new galleries, tell us what you’d like to see in the new Museum and garden, and try our image key words activity.

Half term family fun!
Saturday 25th to Friday 31st October (Closed Monday 27th)
Normal opening times

Pumpkin hunt!

Follow a free pumpkin hunt and receive a chocolate prize!

‘Chocolate box’ make and take

Make and decorate a chocolate box in our free make and take activity.

The Our Country Lives Big Draw

Thursday 30th October
10.00am-11.00am, 11.30am-12.30pm, 1.30pm-2.30pm and 3.00pm-4.00pm

Location*: The Print Studio and room G10, Art Building L04 on the London Road Campus.
*Park and meet at MERL reception and we will walk to The Print Studio together.
£3 per child
Booking required
Suitable for children aged 7+.

Work with University of Reading art students to help make beautiful artwork to decorate hoardings which will be used whilst MERL is closed redevelopment work to take place. During this session, attendees will design large format art inspired by the MERL’s collections using mixed media and the Print studio’s fantastic printing presses.

Rural reads plus

Thursday 30th October
5.30-7pm, free, drop-in
This month we’ll be discussing The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch, the first book inspired by the University’s Special Collections. Read more about why Rural Reads is expanding it’s remit on the website

Collecting the countryside: 20th century rural cultures
Until October 31st
Temporary exhibition space
Free, drop in, normal museum opening times
Since 2008 the Museum of English Rural Life has been adding even more objects to its collection, with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Collecting Cultures programme, in order to represent each decade of the last century. (Find out more in Curator, Isabel Hughes’ blog post) This exhibition gives a taste of what has been acquired. The exhibition will help the Museum to explore how to incorporate more recent histories and representations of the English countryside into its displays as part of the Our Country Lives project.