Press release: Wolfson grant to help MERL display hidden treasures

Posted on January 31, 2014 by merl

Wolfson grant helps Uni Museum display hidden treasures

Visitors to the Museum of English Rural Life will soon be able to discover some of its more hidden treasures thanks to an award of £175,000.

The Museum (MERL), which is owned and managed by the University of Reading, is one of 40 museums across the country to be awarded a joint grant from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Wolfson Foundation.

The grant will allow visitors to view some of the smaller, more fragile, collections and objects, currently only accessible to visitors on guided tours, in striking new display cases. These include a range of traditional crafts including smocking and material from our more recent past such as Women’s Land Army material. Clothing from a 1990s Newbury Bypass eco-warrior will also be displayed for the first time.

The new display opportunities support MERL’s current Heritage Lottery funded redevelopment project, Our Country Lives. The project aims to transform the way that visitors understand our rural past through MERL’s collections. This means shifting the focus from large agricultural machinery to the parts of the collections which relate to how people lived – such as clothing, crafts, food and traditions.

MERL Curator, Isabel Hughes, said: “This grant will transform the public’s access to collections never previously displayed. This will help us create a more relevant museum which our modern, urban audiences can relate to more easily.”

Kate Arnold-Forster, Director of MERL, added: “This is a very exciting time for MERL, the University of Reading and our visitors and we are very grateful for the support of the DCMS/Wolfson Foundation.”

The 40 grants, awarded by the DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund, are designed to fund renovation and improvement projects in museums and galleries, to increase access and enhance the display of exhibits. 40 museums across the length and breadth of England will benefit from grants worth over £4.6 million.

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said:

“The range of projects being funded is testament to the great variety of wonderful collections and attractions at our museums and galleries across the country. These grants will help improve visitor experiences, benefiting local communities and helping to encourage growth, whilst also inspiring audiences with new knowledge, and I’m delighted that with the ongoing generosity of the Wolfson Foundation we have been able to help fund so many projects.”

Paul Ramsbottom, Chief Executive of the Wolfson Foundation added: “We are pleased to be working with government to fund outstanding projects at museums and galleries across England. The DCMS/Wolfson Fund is an excellent example of how a funding charity and government department can work productively together. The projects supported this round are impressive, and will help inspire visitors to the country’s wonderful museums and galleries.”

Basket makers taking part in MERL’s Radcliffe Trust-funded ‘Stakeholders’ project examine rarely seen items from the MERL basket collection, currently housed for the most part in the object store, only accessible to researchers and visitors on guided tours.

Notes to editors

For further information and to arrange interviews, contact James Barr in the University of Reading Press Office on 0118 378 7115

For details of the awards, visit the DCMS website to read the press release issued today

Weekly What’s On: 27th Jan to 2nd Feb

Posted on January 27, 2014 by merl

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

MERL Seminar series: Untouchable England
The Full English: unlocking hidden treasures of England’s cultural heritage
Malcolm Taylor, Library Director, English Folk Dance and Song Society
Tuesday 28th January, 1pm
Malcom Tayor will explore how the digitisation and cataloguing of the archive of early twentieth century English folk arts manuscripts has been enhanced through rich programmes of community engagement and creativity.
For full details of the series, visit our website

Followed by a ‘pop-up’ display of related items from the MERL collections in the object store.

Rural Reads book club
Thursday 30th January, 5.30-7pm
This month the book club will be talking about Lorna Doone by Richard Doddridge. Come along and join in the informal discussion over a cup of tea and a biscuit (£1.50)! Everyone’s welcome! Don’t worry if you haven’t read the book, we often digress, and you can also bring along your suggestion for next month’s ‘rural read’. For details, and a list of all previous books, visit the Rural Reads web page

Toddler time
Friday 31st January, 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.

Collecting the countryside: 20th century rural cultures
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’ recent post) This exhibition gives a taste of what has been acquired and challenges visitors to suggest the modern-day objects that the Museum needs to collect for the future. 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 new Our Country Lives project.

Book jackets in the University of Reading Special Collections
Staircase hall, MERL
Free, drop-in, normal museum opening times
This display celebrates the wide variety of beautiful book jackets within our collections, through a selection of our most colourful favourites! Read more on the Special Collections blog

Psychology students’ research project: children’s word recognition in museums

Posted on January 20, 2014 by merl

Over the Autumn Term we had the pleasure of hosting a psychology research project at the Museum of English Rural Life for two University of Reading undergraduates, Alex Tait and Laura Postlethwaite. Alex and Laura used a selection of objects from the Museum’s collection to explore how children learn new words in a museum setting. In this guest post, they explain their research…

There have been many studies exploring how children use a museum, including many looking into a parent and children’s interaction in a museum. This research is useful as the findings can be used by the museum itself to improve their services – such as through information packs or museum layout – so that their collections can become more effective for children.

When we were planning our third year project, there was an option to carry out a project at MERL – no specific outline was set as to what would be carried out and so we had an initial meeting with a few of the staff from the museum, to come up with an idea that would incorporate both our requirements for our project, but also one that would benefit the museum in some way. After much discussion and working out what was achievable for us, we came up with a project looking at how children learn names of novel objects, and whether words and/or pictures would aid this learning or not. This links to our studies about a child’s word learning and will also benefit the museum and help their plans for their redevelopment. Hopefully, the museum will be able to use our findings to develop useful resources for children to use when visiting the museum.

Following the generation of this idea, we came up with a standardised procedure that we could use to test a child’s word learning. We then chose 10 novel objects that we could teach a child the names of – we had to ensure that the children would not know the names of these objects prior to this study. These were then placed in a case in the museum (seen in the picture) for use during the research. Information cards containing words and/or pictures of these objects were then prepared and then the research could start!

We carried out a pilot study in the museum on Apple Day, and started our actual research after a few alterations in October half term so that we could carry out the research on children of our target age as they visited. Our next steps are to collate all of the data we collected over the week in the museum and see if we found any significant results.

Hopefully our findings will be useful and able to inform the museum on how to usefully interpret their collections for this age of audience during their potential redevelopment next year! We look forward to sharing our results in due course.

Alex Tait and Laura Postlethwaite

Weekly What’s On: 20th to 26th January

Posted on January 20, 2014 by merl

This week’s What’s On includes links to our new events guides and details of the new seminar series which starts tomorrow…

Our new What’s On guide to events and exhibition at MERL is now available to download from our website. Find out about our full, fascinating and fun programme of public events from now until July, including seminars, a Vintage Night, Village Fete and of course our regular Rural Reads book club and guided tours. Printed copies will be available from MERL (or via our postal mailing list) at the end of the month.

We also have a fantastic programme of events and activities for families this Spring, from half term. Full details of all our events as well as information about what there is to do at MERL during any visit, are in our new MERL families guide, which you can now download from our website (or sign up to receive by post)

What’s On this week…

MERL Seminar series: Untouchable England
Somerset Morris: West Country Friendly Society stave dancers
Tuesday 21st January, 1pm
Using antique Friendly Society stave heads, Somerset Morris has performed stave dancing across England and further afield for over 30 years. Hear about the team’s passion for this traditional and localised dance form. For full details of the series, visit our website

Followed by a ‘pop-up’ display of MERL’s Friendly Society pole heads (staves) in the mezzanine store.

Toddler time
Friday 23rd January, 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. This week we’ll be making bird feeders so that you can take part in this weekend’s RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch.

You can also find details of all our forthcoming events on our online calendar

Volunteers Voice #8: Plot plans for 2014

Posted on January 17, 2014 by merl

Our two gardening volunteers, Tony and Roger, spent the last year transforming our plots into bee friendly areas, designed to encourage bees into our garden and to show visitors how easy it is to support them. Tony and Roger have kindly written a post for us about what they have in store for 2014…

Following the use of plants that are attractive to pollinators last year, (read our last garden blog post for more info) it has been decided to double the area of direct-sown hardy annuals. Last year, the plot nearest to the main entrance to the gardens was planted with bee-friendly half-hardy annuals. These have to be raised under heated glasshouses and, although the effect can be more carefully planned, it is a costly exercise compared with direct sowing of hardy annuals.

Bed planted with half-hardy annuals

The second plot was sown with four different mixtures of hardy annual flowers sold by Thompson and Morgan, the plot being divided into four beds with the following mixtures:

Annual early flowering mix
Wildflower honey-bee flower mix
Wildflower mix
Butterfly mix

Bed sown with mixtures of hardy annual flowers

There was a huge range of species found within these mixtures and, when in full bloom, the whole plot sometimes seemed to be humming. To be honest, I cannot for the life of me prove that more butterflies landed on the butterfly mixture bed or that fewer bees landed on the butterfly mixture than on the bee-mixture bed. But come on, ye of little faith! Of course the little fellahs know what they are doing.

Those of you who ventured outdoors in April may remember that the seed was sown in drills about 10 cm apart (making hoeing and weeding easier) and then covered with horticultural fleece. This had a dramatic effect on germination, providing warmth and conserving moisture whilst allowing water to penetrate. Many seeds had begun to germinate in 10-15 days and as soon as most species were pushing against the fleece we took it off and gave them their freedom. If you are even a moderately interested gardener, do try a packet or two in any sunny corner that you don’t really know what to do with. They come in packets of 1 gm which is enough to cover one per square metre. I offer a tip, however. If you go onto the Thompson and Morgan website you will find these mixtures hard to find. Go to their search box and type in “bee mixture” etc. as listed above. The same problem arises with their catalogue and a here a telephone call seems necessary. Never mind, they are very charming!

Caring for bees

This year, in addition to growing plants that attract bees, we are planning to create examples of the habitats where bees like to build their nests. Visitors will be given a bee trail to follow which will lead them to all the places in the garden where bees might be nesting, so that they can see what they can do in their own gardens to encourage bees to take up residence.

Tony Hales and Roger Sym

If you have any horticultural questions, Tony Hales has kindly offer to answer your questions. Post a comment below or leave a question with staff at reception.

Pictures of the month #7 – Floods in Berkshire

Posted on January 16, 2014 by merl

Photographic Assistant, Caroline Benson has selected 2 particularly topical images from our collections this month…

The subject of this month’s photographs will seem all too familiar to many people living by the Thames. They show the floods of November 1895 in the riverside village of Pangbourne in Berkshire. Small boats & punts can be seen transporting people along the streets & walkways constructed from wooden planks are used as pavements. The photographs are from the Sulham House Collection of some two hundred and forty prints showing life in and around Sulham between the 1880s & 1920s.

Weekly What’s On: 13th to 20th January ’14

Posted on January 13, 2014 by merl

Toddler time
Friday 17th January, 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.

And a little more notice for the first in our new seminar series on intangible heritage, Untouchable England…

MERL Seminar: Somerset Morris: West Country Friendly Society stave dancers
Tuesday 21st January, 1pm
Using antique Friendly Society stave heads, Somerset Morris has performed stave dancing across England and further afield for over 30 years. Hear about the team’s passion for this traditional and localised dance form.

Followed by a ‘pop-up’ display of MERL’s Friendly Society pole heads (staves) in the mezzanine store.

Gerry Westall

Posted on January 7, 2014 by merl

It is with great sadness that we have learnt of the death of our longest serving volunteer, Gerry Westall, who passed away peacefully shortly before Christmas. A former employee of Sutton’s Seeds and a well-known local historian, Gerry brought an enormous depth of expertise and knowledge to the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) during the 20 years that he volunteered with us.

In June 2011 the University of Reading acknowledged Gerry’s long service, along with that of his colleague Ron Butler, at a special event celebrating volunteering.

In his letter inviting guests to the event, Professor Gordon Marshall, the then Vice-Chancellor, noted that the event would “mark the significant achievements and impact of our many students and local volunteers who have made a personal contribution within our institution and our wider community over the past year.” It was very fitting that Gerry’s service was highlighted at such an event, because his contribution was not only a long one but, more importantly, a significant one.

For many years, Gerry, with his friend, former colleague and fellow-volunteer Ron Butler, were the Museum’s only volunteers. Starting in the old MERL buildings on Whiteknights, Gerry made his mark, often quite literally, on many collections and projects. Of course, most important to him was the Sutton’s archive and he poured many hours into supporting the cataloguing, enhancing lists, identifying people and places in photographs and, with the Earley Local History Group, producing a wonderful publication celebrating the firm’s history. Gerry also maintained links with the company and with former staff members, enabling MERL to learn of and acquire countless additional items which might otherwise have been lost to researchers.

Gerry’s other great project related to the local history photographic collections at MERL. Those who worked closely with him would never cease to be amazed by his ability to recognise a street or a shopfront, long since disappeared, and from that recognition to build a picture of the people and their connections to the prominent companies and families of Reading. This immense knowledge was generously and unswervingly shared with MERL and, through the lists and catalogues that Gerry enhanced, with the wider community. Some photographs escaped recognition, but these were exceptional: such episodes were always great fun, as Gerry, along with other members of the team, attempted to guess the location and pushed suggestions back and forth.

This sharing of knowledge extended to Gerry’s regular local history notes in the local newspaper, for which he drew on both MERL’s collection of old photographs, and his own personal collection. Gerry would always recognise the limits of his knowledge, and publishing the images allowed him to bring other local residents into the project – although anyone who knew Gerry knew that he was rarely if ever mistaken in his identifications! Gerry was also very keen to ensure that MERL received recognition locally for the strength of its collections and for the work that it does.

Since learning of Gerry’s death, many colleagues, former colleagues and other volunteers have spoken to us of his enthusiasm and kindness. As a member of the team (and he could hardly fail to be that, so long had he served), he was always ready with a bit of gardening advice, or a word of support or encouragement, or with a suggestion – always constructive and positive. Gerry knew that his days in management had passed, and was always at pains to allow the professional staff to make decisions – although he would have made a fine curator or archivist. He took an interest in people and often joined the other staff and volunteers at coffee time for a chat. It is not only his knowledge that will be missed, but also his camaraderie.

Volunteering at MERL was not a chore for Gerry: in 2012, when the Museum achieved the Investing in Volunteers Standard, he was chosen to comment on his experience and said the following: “I find volunteering at the University Museums and Special Collections Service extremely rewarding and very much feel part of the team. What I enjoy best is the local collections which I have been interested in for most of my life. I’ve been going through the local photos and putting captions underneath, sending them to the local newspapers which are then published. I have learnt a lot and continue to learn.”

The thoughts of everyone at MERL are with Maureen, and with all of Gerry’s family and friends.

Gerry Westall working in the reading room, May 2012

Our Country Lives – the new MERL blog

Sharing insights into the activities of MERL staff, volunteers and visitors during a period of change and transformation…

Monthly Archives: January 2014