Wild Mammals Bulletin

Cover of booklet entitled Wild Mammals and the Land, featuring small images of different animals around the edges

F. Howard Lancum, Wild Mammals and the Land (London: HMSO, 1951) This booklet was Bulletin 150 from a series produced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Fisheries (MAFF) during the 1940s and 1950s. These publications offered advice to farmers on management of land and livestock, and sometimes nature. Echoing this latter focus, Bulletin 140 (1948) […]

NUAW Banner

This was the first banner of the NUAW (National Union of Agricultural Workers) and was initially used in Norfolk. The banner was presented to the Union by Mrs Bridges Adams, a Londoner who became interested in farm workers and the Union’s activities. According to Messrs Tutills, the banner firm who repaired it sometime before 1961, it […]

Sheep bell

Metal sheep bell with handle, seen on its side with clapper visible

Whitechapel Bell Foundry, Sheep bell used as theatre prop, 1950s The Whitechapel Bell Foundry closed in 2017, after more than four centuries of continuous trade, and 250 at the same site. At around the same time they made this bell they also cast a special bell for the 1951 Festival of Britain. The closure of […]

Model thresher

Detail of a small dark wooden threshing machine mechanism with cogs and workings visible.

Barrett, Exall & Andrewes, Model threshing machine, 1847 This is a scale demonstration model of a type of four-horse-powered threshing machine, used after harvest to separate the grains from the stalks of cereal crops. This object was the second item to be listed as part of The MERL collection. It was given by Reading Museum […]

Object-handling at home – the bee skep

In this post our curator, Ollie Douglas, introduces us to bee skeps and helps us to explore their history, construction, and design. He describes some simple, hands-on ways for us to think and learn about how bee-keepers used to house their bees (all without having to leave our own homes). A bee skep is a […]

A Land Down Under

Anthropologist and Collections Volunteer Paul Trawick continues his journey of subsoil discovery, exploring the role of land drainage on English farms. In his first post – What Lies Beneath? – he introduced us to these little-known systems. In this installment he elaborates further on their history and how they work… We have already seen how […]

Gentle Harvester

A gentle harvester - a metal handle with spiral wire attached

When placed on a long pole this fruit picker extended the user’s reach. They could then retrieve apples, pears or plums without bruising them. The ingenious design was devised by William Penn Ltd, a company that offered solutions to some of life’s most pressing challenges, such as the ‘awl-you-need’ leather stitcher and ‘so-easy’ seed sower.

What lies beneath?

Anthropologist and Collections Volunteer Paul Trawick has been delving into the role of field drains on English farms. These hidden gems offer an ingenious and indigenous way to reclaim ground, improve topsoil, tame groundwater, and achieve sustainable crop yields. But few of us even know they are there. In this, the first of several posts, […]

The chicken and the egg: the David Scrivener Collection

Which came first? Discover all things poultry, chickens and eggs in our new Staircase Hall exhibition celebrating the completion of the cataloguing of the David Scrivener Collection: The chicken and the egg, from 12th November 2018. Written by Claudia Ricci, Project Cataloguer. Thanks to the generous support of The Poultry Club of Great Britain we […]

The new buzz about bees : the Cowan Bee Collection

Written by Fiona Melhuish, UMASCS Librarian As bees start to buzz around the boughs of spring blossom in the MERL garden, it seems a good time to announce one of our most important recent acquisitions: the Cowan Bee Collection. The collection, which was donated to us by Defra (the Department for Environment Food & Rural […]

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