200 Years of Huntley & Palmers in Reading, our latest exhibition
Find out about our 2022 Huntley & Palmers exhibition in the Staircase Hall, commemorating 200 years of the Biscuit Town in Reading.
Time to take CARE
Learn about our focus for 2022: highlighting how we take care of rural heritage, the countryside’s future, and each other.
The history of the servants’ ball
The servants’ ball has had a long tradition in the country house estates of Britain and only really died out after the Second World War.
51 Voices: A growing understanding
This January, The MERL embarked on 51 Voices, a new year-long project celebrating the museum’s seventieth anniversary in 2021. Throughout the year, we will be working with a range of writers, artists and different communities to give contemporary voice to fifty-one objects and archives in The MERL collection connected in myriad ways to our founding year. […]
Queer Constellations: an interview with Daniel Baker
From the 6th July, two artworks by Daniel Baker, Copse and Canopy, will go on display at The MERL as part of our latest display, Queer Constellations. Daniel is a Romani Gypsy born in Kent: an artist, curator and theorist, he holds a PhD on the subject of Gypsy aesthetics from the Royal College of […]
Why travelling matters: engaging schools with our migration stories
Written by Phillippa Heath, Learning and Engagement Manager at The MERL. As part of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month 2021, we have been sharing collections at The MERL that connect to the histories of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people, including objects, archives, photography, art and library collections. These collections tell us so much about […]
People and Places: why The MERL is taking part in Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month
Throughout June, The MERL is celebrating Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month. Running since 2008, this month celebrates ‘the remarkable and immense contributions Gypsy, Roma and Traveller individuals and communities bring to wider society’. Its aim is to help tackle prejudice, challenge myths and amplify the voices of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers. To some readers, it […]
51 Voices: Be Nice, Say Hello, Share the Space
This January, The MERL embarked on 51 Voices, a new year-long project celebrating the Museum’s seventieth anniversary in 2021. Throughout the year, we will be working with a range of writers, artists and different communities to give contemporary voice to fifty-one objects and archives in The MERL collection connected in myriad ways to our founding […]
Sister Lavinia
Henry Owen Vaughan, Photographs of Miss Smith’s Museum, 1937–1943 These photographs were taken in the village of East Hendred during the late-1930s and early-1940s by the Reading-based amateur photographer Henry Owen Vaughan. They show a private home and museum at Downside House, which belonged to Lavinia Smith, sometimes referred to as ‘Miss Lavinia’ or ‘Sister […]
A Land
Jacquetta Hawkes, A Land (London: Cresset Press, 1951) This book was published just one month after the opening of the Festival of Britain. Its author, Jacquetta Hawkes, was a significant figure in mid-twentieth-century archaeology. In the same year she was also feted for her role as convener of the Festival’s People of Britain pavilion. Her book and Festival […]