We’ve been very busy over the last few months, so here’s our latest Top 10 run-down of what’s been happening…

1. Bringing the wagons down from their overhead positions was a delicate and pretty scary job for our conservator and team of specialists. See how it went.

2. We’ve grown! The extension to our welcome area now has a roof, and the steel frame for the new gallery went up on a grim day in March.

3. We’ve run two ‘Behind the scenes’ tours and family forum events to update families with our plans, try out some of the new object handling sessions, and gather feedback.

4. We’ve had two meetings of our Countryside Forum and colleagues have been out and about interviewing and consulting with farmers to gathering reactions to our proposed interpretation of gallery topics.

5. Our research has continued apace, bringing fascinating new stories out of our objects. It has also resulted in a MERL 1st – a Tweet being entered into one of our object records!

6. We have been working with our designers, GuM, to come up with final layouts, themes and stories for the new galleries.

7. We’ve taken part in the Art in Redlands ‘R’egg’lands Spring Hatch’ trail!

8. We’ve run the ‘Discovering the Landscape’  seminar series exploring the collections in the Landscape Institute archive.

Pop up exhibition in our Staircase Hall following an LI seminar

9. We’ve decided to hold The British Cheese Party for Museums at Night, inspired by research into the traditional cheese revival for one of our new gallery displays.

10. We have also been working hard on a new look and style for the Museum, all of which is under wraps for now!