Tag Archives: Our Country Lives

Our Country Lives update: Michael Eavis’s French wellies

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Written by Adam Koszary, Project Officer.

Yesterday we picked up our newest acquisition: a pair of wellies. It seems strange that a museum of English rural life wouldn’t have this icon of the countryside already in the collection, but they never really came onto our radar as an endangered object. The welly has never needed saving as it’s managed to persevere as a popular and versatile piece of footwear from its inception in 1817 as a military boot, through to being the favoured outdoor footwear for farmers and to the present day as a quasi-glamour item associated with festivals.

Michael Eavis wearing his wellies in front of his farmhouse.

Michael Eavis wearing his wellies in front of his farmhouse.

It is these last two associations which led us to the pair of wellies pictured above. They have been well-used over a ten year period by Michael Eavis, Somerset dairy farmer and organiser of Glastonbury Festival. Despite the massive popularity of the festival which Michael has been running since 1970, he is first and foremost a farmer and the infamous Glastonbury mud is still caked on the soles of his wellies now sitting in the Assistant Curator’s office. His dairy herd are the highest yielding in Somerset and the 4th highest in the UK – and if he milked them three times a day rather than two he could even be the highest in the country. He has a great enthusiasm for his farm, his cows and the people who look after them. However, as founder of Glastonbury he has also overseen the birth of the welly as a practical fashion item, with revellers mucking about in the mud on his farm splashed across papers and TV reports (and subsequently onto the national psyche). Celebrities hounded by the paparazzi at the festival have their outfits scrutinised by tabloids and magazines, leaving the Hunter wellington boot to come out top in the fashion stakes. Festivals are not only a way for a select few farmers to earn extra income, but also a principal way in which people now enjoy the countryside.

Michael is a farmer first - his farm dominates the view from his garden, with the Pyramid Stage in the distance.

Michael is a farmer first – his farm dominates the view from his garden, with the Pyramid Stage in the distance.

There is one small hitch though: these wellies are French. Should this matter, as a museum of English rural life? I don’t think that it does, but I’m well aware that others may think differently. The message these wellies are meant to illustrate – that they have shifted in the public mind from practical farmers’ shoes to festival-goers’ shoes – is not affected by their origin. Michael Eavis is English, as is his farm, and presumably the shop he bought them in was also English (we’ll be ironing out these details in an interview later this year).

We're currently debating whether to keep the Glastonbury mud on the soles.

We’re currently debating whether to keep the Glastonbury mud on the soles.

This is an issue which I think we will encounter in various forms in the new displays as part of Our Country Lives. There are numerous stories and facts that we want to talk about with our visitors, but for some of these we may not necessarily have the objects to illustrate them, or the objects we have may have a difficult provenance (e.g. they are not from England, or we don’t know who owned them or where they’re from). Should this mean, then, that we don’t talk about certain issues or facts? It shouldn’t, as for every topic we don’t have an object for there is a wealth of archives, photographs and videos which we can use instead. In the case of these specific boots, I think they remain valid in the sense that they show the international side of English rural life, and our place in a new, globalised world market. To ignore the international links and global events that affect English agriculture and the economy would be a dishonest way of exploring English rural life, and as such will still feature in the new galleries. We are continuing to research and plan these galleries, but once we approach our final version we will be sure to let you know all about them on this blog!

Please touch: Future handling collection at MERL

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written by Adam Koszary, Project Officer.

One of the biggest complaints levelled at museums is that visitors cannot touch anything. Objects are put tantalisingly out of reach behind thin Perspex and glass, or an arms-length behind a velvet rope. It is annoying because objects are almost always meant to be touched, and especially so in our museum where many of our objects are made by hand or made to be used by hands. We have tools which benefit from decades or centuries of refinement to fit perfectly in the hand, as well as textiles, ceramics, pulleys and cranks which demand to be touched – their roughness, smoothness, ridges, pits, dimples or simply put: their texture, is often integral to understanding them. However this then runs up against the fact that if we let visitors touch everything, we soon wouldn’t have a museum left. We often ask our visitors not to touch because we have to ensure that the collection remains whole and in good condition for future generations to enjoy.

We looked at this smock as part of our workshop - it feels a lot better than it looks.

We looked at this smock as part of our workshop – it feels a lot better than it looks.

We spent a morning and part of the afternoon yesterday exploring this tension between preservation of our objects and all of the reasons why objects should be touched. It is obvious how simply by touching and interacting with an object you can learn so much more from it. By exploring a smock close-up you can see and feel the irregular hand-sewed seams as well as more fully appreciate the intricate detail of the smocking; by holding a flail you can feel how surprisingly light it is, yet imagine how heavy it may be after a day’s work (and the smoothness and many repairs of the flail showed it definitely had seen many a day’s work). There is also the fact that some people learn more from hands-on activities, and for people with visual impairments it is a necessity.

Would you like to handle some hands? Plaster casts of Joseph Arch's hands (MERL 75/16/1-2)

Would you like to handle some hands? Plaster casts of Joseph Arch’s hands (MERL 75/16/1-2)

It is fair to say, then, that people both specifically and in general can only learn so much by reading a label and looking at an object, and as such we are exploring the different ways in which we could have objects available to handle by group-booked sessions and normal gallery visitors. After looking at case-studies from the Manchester Museum, the Horniman Museum and the Museum of London, we began to look into the idea of volunteer-led handling opportunities within the galleries, as well as the logistics of creating a handling collection. Of course, we already do have some handling of objects at some events and visits, but it has usually been on an ad-hoc basis. However, the new galleries of MERL as part of Our Country Lives also mean we have a great opportunity to integrate handling into everything we do, and make it a permanent feature of the new museum. Our next step is to ensure we are targeting the right audiences with our handling opportunities, and decide what themes the handling collection should cover. We’ll be working with Charlotte Dew on how to plan and implement a new handling collection, who is helping us as part of our Arts Council England-funded project Reading Engaged.

Our Country Lives update: How we research

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written by Adam Koszary, Project Officer.

You may have noticed that we’ve been a bit quiet recently about our HLF-funded redevelopment project, Our Country Lives. This is because we’re waiting for a response from the Heritage Lottery Fund due on June 13th (fingers crossed), but also because a lot of us have been busy catching up on other projects such as Reading Connections, Countryside21 and A Sense of Place. country lives logoLast week, however, has seen the project kick-started again with a couple of meetings focusing on how we should be researching the stories and objects we want to put into the new displays, as well as how we should be marketing the new MERL. We’re also reaching a stage where I can give more detailed project updates, and this series of posts will probably focus more on the research-side of things, as well as some behind-the-scenes of how we go about delivering such a huge project as Our Country Lives. To recap our research so far, we spent a lot the 2013 winter and spring of 2014 getting to grips with the huge amount of objects and archives in the MERL collection. As well as trying to make sure we’re representing the countryside in all of its complexity and diversity, we have to make sure that we’re choosing the best objects and archives for the job, backed up by solid and current research.

One of our current gallery layouts (very much subject to change).

One of our current gallery layouts (very much subject to change).

The stories we want to tell about rural life are sometimes driven by our objects, archival documents, video footage, or other types of media. Sometimes a problem can be that we do not have any objects to illustrate stories we want to tell, but in our case our problem is having too many objects. Did you know we have around 26,000 objects, archives covering 4,500 linear metres and a library of over 50,000 volumes? It’s obviously a good thing that we have such a large and diverse collection, but this is also a double-edged sword. Our museum has no off-site storage, and so everything has to fit into the galleries, mezzanine storage, and a new duplicate store which is being built at the back. Because of this, much of our work so far has been trying to find a place for all of our objects so that our designers could decide where to put essential things such as walls and doorways.

This is one of the reasons why we are putting our wagons in a line along the north wall; as well as being a new and interesting way of exploring this nationally important collection, it is also one of the only ways to fit them all into the galleries. The only other option was to have a few wagons in every single gallery, which we thought would overshadow the other collections. As for the rest of the collection, we have been combing through our catalogue and placing our objects into the galleries and storylines best suited for them. You can see an example of one of our spreadsheets below, which will be the base from which we decide where and why to put our objects, including how they fit in with key messages, generic learning outcomes and storylines. We will also work from these lists to engage in more detailed research on specific objects and subjects contained within the new galleries. The storylines and topics we want to explore are by no means final, however, and so we will also be spending a lot of time in the coming months ironing out our topics, consulting with experts, and having lengthy debates about what is in and what is out.

An example of one of our object spreadsheets

An example of one of our object spreadsheets

Essentially, the planning and delivery an almost entirely new museum is difficult and complicated, but it is also a rewarding and refreshing experience. If you would like to know a bit more about this aspect of the project or the project as a whole, feel free to drop me an email at a.j.koszary@reading.ac.uk , and keep an eye out for future updates.

Our Country Lives project submitted!

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written by Adam Koszary, Project Officer for Our Country Lives.

5MERL’s HLF project Our Country Lives reached an important milestone last Monday when we submitted our bid for second stage funding to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).  We will find out whether we have been successful in June.

Our consultants for the design of the new galleries, GuM, provided us with some fantastic visuals to accompany the bid which you can see below. However, most of our plans are still tightly under wraps until we finalise everything and, if we do get the go-ahead, start building in Autumn later this year, with our re-opening then due in late Summer 2015. Our Library and the University Special Collections will be open as usual.  Our events programme will continue until we close, and are currently thinking about possible activities and outreach to take place during our closure period.

A mock-up of how our wagons may be displayed

A mock-up of how our wagons may be displayed

We are looking forward to sharing far more about this project in the coming months, as we have exciting plans for new projects, activities and community events which will accompany our re-display. The designs and thinking behind our new galleries is also looking spectacular, so you should definitely keep an eye on this space for sneak-peeks and previews of what you can expect in the new MERL.

You should also keep an eye out for opportunities for how you can get involved – our local community and wider audiences are at the heart of our re-display and there will be many chances to influence how we explore English rural life.

If you would like more information on the project please contact Adam at a.j.koszary@reading.ac.uk

 

Keep up! Stakeholder consultation on MERL’s Our Country Lives project

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MERL Curator of Collections and Engagement, Isabel Hughes, brings us up to date with progress on the Our Country Lives project

Our project plans are developing quite quickly now and one of the challenges is to keep all our various stakeholders informed including our volunteers, neighbours and other interested parties in the University.  Last week we held two sessions to update everyone on the how the project is developing.  About 40 people attended and heard presentations from myself and Rob Davies, Volunteer Co-ordinator.

We were able to explain the broad rationale of the project – to create more space around the building in order to improve both the displays and visitor facilities.

OCL plans

We are working with museum design consultants to create exciting new galleries

 

Alongside the redisplay of the galleries there will be a full programme of activities to attract new and existing visitors to MERL.

Planning for closure is just as important as planning for the reopening of MERL.  There are various important dates for us; 24 February 2014 is the submission date for our Heritage Lottery Fund.  We shall hear the outcome some time in June or early July.  If successful, that would give us 8 – 10 weeks to get ready for contractors arriving on site.  We can’t guarantee an exact start date for construction work but we would aim to offer a full programme of activities over the summer and would close the Museum from about October 2014.

During the closure we would keep the Special Collections, including the reading room open to the public.  We are thinking as well about events we might be able to offer as outreach around Reading.  The main casualty of this phase is likely to be the garden which may be used for contractors’ huts and would definitely be out of bounds to visitors. We are planning to redesign the garden to reflect the themes of the redisplay, however.

There is a lot of work to do to plan for reopening which is likely to take place in late Summer 2015.  We aim to offer an exciting set of launch events, underpinned by a revamped website and publicity materials.

At last week’s meetings our stakeholders seemed very positive about our plans and offered useful suggestions for enhancing things or forging new partnerships.

As you can imagine, the next couple of weeks before submitting our bid are going to be very busy for everyone at MERL, but we look forward to sharing more information over the coming months.

 

My Favourite Object #4: ‘By the Roadside’ cigarette cards

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written by Felicity McWilliams, Project Officer.

Quite a few of my favourite objects in the museum were collected as part of the Collecting 20th Century Rural Cultures project. The project began in 2008, with the aim of acquiring objects for the collections which build a picture of the twentieth century English countryside. A wide variety of objects were collected, such as a Corgi Toy combine harvester, a Farmer Palmer cartoon mug, and suburban railway posters advertising countryside rambles. More so than the rest of the collections, these objects often show ideas and representations of and about the countryside. I’ve chosen object number 2009/69 as my favourite – a full set of 50 Ogden’s cigarette cards, from the 1932 series ‘By the Roadside’. Each card depicts a place of historical or natural interest in or close to a town, with a colour illustration and description of the place on the reverse. The places featured on the cards range from all over England – and two from Scotland. Each illustration also has a small map showing how to find the place in relation to nearby larger towns. As former curator Roy Brigden pointed out in his own blog post about these cards, this implies that the collector could or should take a day trip to visit the featured place. Day trips in the countryside became possible for urban dwellers with the advent of the railways and later the motor car, and other objects in the Collecting 20th Century Rural Cultures collection, such as a 1900’s travelling tea-making basket, point to this popular twentieth century pastime.

2009/69/9: Cigarette card, from the 1932 Ogden’s Series ‘By the Roadside’. This card is ninth in the series of fifty.

2009/69/9: Cigarette card, from the 1932 Ogden’s Series ‘By the Roadside’. This card is ninth in the series of fifty.

Day trips to the countryside are by no means a hobby of the past, either. My own favourite from within this set is the ninth card in the series, which features the wool market in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire. I like this one in particular because it reminds me of regular and continuing visits to Chipping Campden with my Nan. I’ll admit we probably visit for the tearooms and shoe shop more than the wool market, but it is a fascinating structure that is just part of the great historical interest and beauty of the town.

For me, this set of cigarette cards is very much about the rural landscape and our interactions with it. The Our Country Lives project will tackle the challenge of bringing more stories about rural lives, people, and landscapes into the displays; the objects collected as part of Collecting 20th Century Rural Cultures have a lot of potential to help draw out such themes. The current temporary exhibition at MERL is called Collecting the countryside: 20th century rural cultures, and it features many of the objects collected as part of the project. There’s also a space for visitors to leave their own suggestions and experiences, all of which will feed back into the Our Country Lives redevelopment work.

Our Country Lives Update

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written by Sophia Mirchandani, Katie Norgrove and Jocelyn Goddard, consultants working on Our Country Lives

 

We are founder members of Cultural Consulting Network, which provides professional consultancy services to the heritage and arts sectors. Specialising in research, evaluation, project development, funding and grants, we work closely with our clients to provide intelligent and workable solutions to suit individual needs.

We have spent many years working in the South East region and have seen the Museum of Rural Life change and develop over that time. We’re delighted to be part of the Our Country Lives team, continuing its progress with a new and exciting project.

We are hoping to build on successful events like our 2013 Village Fete!

We are hoping to build on successful events like our 2013 Village Fete!

Applications to the Heritage Lottery Fund go through a 2-stage process for grants at this level. We are currently in the middle – the development phase. This is the time for putting more detail into the plans, testing out assumptions, trying out new ideas and most importantly, talking to people. Once this has happened, we can produce an Activity Plan. This will be submitted as part of the 2nd round application. It will cover everything the Museum wants to achieve that will affect people, rather than buildings, objects or collections.

We began by finding out as much as we could about the people who visit MERL and use its collections – Why do they come? What do they like about us? What kind of people are they?  If you visited recently, you may have been asked to fill in a questionnaire to help us answer some of these questions.

Now we are moving on to think about the people we would like to visit and benefit from the collections, but who may need some changes to be made in order to make that possible or to improve their experience. Perhaps they only have a vague idea about MERL and what they might find there. Perhaps they would like more information about the objects in the displays, so that they can explain what they are seeing to their children. Or maybe they would want to get more involved – take part in a project or volunteer for an activity, for example.

 

If you would like to join in this kind of discussion, please get in touch with the Project Officer Adam Koszary at a.j.koszary@reading.ac.uk

Volunteers’ Voice #4: Summer Volunteers

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written by Rob Davies, Volunteer Coordinator.

It’s summer and for us at MERL it is a very busy time for us. Our varied host of family activities means that we are very busy with a large footfall of visitors who would otherwise be at school. This is an excellent opportunity for younger visitors to explore the museum and we provide an affordable, friendly and safe environment for families. However, this does provide an added strain on the staff and volunteers of the family activities programme.

Thank you to our summer volunteers!

Thank you to our summer volunteers!

In preparation for the summer activities I recruit a team of volunteers specifically for the summer; of course, I invite regular volunteers to participate as well but in order to relieve the strain on them I have the summer activities team ready too. When the summer is over I always ensure there is another project or role that the summer volunteers can feed into if they would like to continue volunteering with us.

We have a large student body within the volunteer team, which is thanks to our obvious connections with the University of Reading but also down to the current climate where volunteering is seen as part of student life. This is great during term time but leaves a hole when it comes to the holidays, and I counter this hole with other students returning to Reading for the summer – it is a continuous cycle.

The summer team is comprised of student and community volunteers, reflecting the volunteer programme as a whole. These volunteers are often people who have experience of working or volunteering with children or those who wish to gain such experience. It is a great opportunity for people to experience learning and family activity sessions within a museum environment, volunteer alongside museum professionals and develop excellent skills.

I would recommend inviting the volunteers to meet each other first, cover what each session will entail, plan arrivals and ensure that everyone is aware of the health and safety practice. All this will help ensure that the activities go as planned.

Without the strong and enthusiastic team of volunteers we would not be able to deliver such an extensive range of holiday activities. Volunteers will also be integral to our future plans for MERL in Our Country Lives, in particular because of the invaluable input and opinions of volunteers on what we can do with the museum.

Our Country Lives update: MERL goes to Stockholm

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written by Adam Koszary, Project Officer for Our Country Lives.

 

One thing I never expected from working at a museum of English rural life was the opportunity to visit Sweden. However, with some Erasmus funding me and five colleagues did just that, and went to Stockholm to see one of the world’s most successful open air museum, Skansen, the Nordic Museum, and the Museum Gustavianum in Uppsala.

Photograph by Adam Koszary

The Urban Quarter of Skansen

Each of our group had different interests whilst in Sweden, but all are tied to the redevelopment of MERL for Our Country Lives. Project Officer Greta’s interest in crafts and relations with craftspeople will help with our own collaborations and interpretation; Project Officer Felicity’s ethnographic interest in the Sami people will help our interpretation of rural cultures; Assistant Curator Ollie’s interest in the institutional history and development of Skansen will help our own research and interpretation of MERL’s history (see also his previous post on this blog). However, as well as these interests there was also research into the infrastructure and organisation of the museums we visited, their interaction with local groups and institutions, their approach to sensitive topics, and a profound interest in Skansen’s cinnamon buns (baked onsite).

Photograph by Adam Koszary

Statue of King Gustav Vasa at the Nordic Museum, Stockholm

Founded in 1891, Skansen is the godfather of rural, folk and open-air museums, and is incredibly successful within Sweden. Their practice of renting out historic buildings to craftspeople where they can demonstrate their skills and sell their products is one which MERL could potentially replicate on a smaller scale. Their greater size (and funding) also allow them to keep an onsite zoo containing Swedish wildlife such as wolves, bears and moose; animals after all are at the heart of rural life, and it is something we also hope to explore more in Our Country Lives. Further north, the exciting interactions between the Museum Gustavianum and Uppsala University will no doubt guide our intent to integrate ourselves more with the University of Reading and its students, and the Nordic Museum’s galleries on folk traditions and ethnographic partnerships were also interesting.

However, as well as research and study there were some vanities on our part. For instance, while visiting the Nordic Museum’s archives we were allowed a glimpse of Strindberg’s original manuscript of Miss Julie, as well as a wealth of ethnographic surveys and material relating to Skansen’s founder, Artur Hazelius. Most impressive for me was visiting the Vasa, a 17th century ship raised from the bottom of Stockholm’s port, and one of the first large ships to be preserved by polyethylene glycol, a chemical compound which replaces the water in waterlogged wood, and the same method used to preserve the Mary Rose.

Photograph by Adam Koszary

The Vasa, a preserved 17th century ship in Stockholm

Overall, the trip was a useful one. It was refreshing to see a museum so similar in vision and background to ours, but also learning from how our approach and methods differ. It is safe to say that the lessons we learnt on the trip will certainly be applied to the redevelopment of MERL, although introducing wolves to the garden may be a step too far.

More photographs after the jump…

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Is the future of MERL ethnographic?

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written by Dr Ollie Douglas, Assistant Curator.

 

My colleague Felicity McWilliams and I recently attended an ambitious conference at the Pitt Rivers Museum on The Future of Ethnographic Museums, which encouraged me to reflect on how the Our Country Lives project might begin to explore issues of nationalism, multiculturalism and even colonialism.

MERL may seem an incongruous place in which to debate such themes. Indeed, I am sure many feel that it should stick to agricultural and folk life exhibits for which it is best known. However, as the first Keeper John Higgs argued in 1963, folk life is essentially ‘a subdivision of ethnography.’ Indeed, behind the nostalgic façade of MERL’s displays lies the somewhat unsung aim to examine the myriad ways in which people create, connect with, and repurpose ideas and objects of rural England. At the conference itself, Felicity participated in a lunchtime session during which she spoke about our recent project A Sense of Place, touching briefly on how this trialled one way of exploring MERL’s holdings from an anthropological perspective. In addition (and perhaps most unexpectedly), MERL even houses a small handful of comparative artefacts drawn from overseas contexts.

This hoe was originally sent to MERL in the 1970s for identification. Colleagues at the then Museum of Mankind identified it as being from Senegal or the Gambia. It was later donated (MERL 74/114/1-2)

This West African hoe—seen here in the object store at MERL surrounded by English-made artefacts—was originally sent to the Museum for identification. Specialists at the then Museum of Mankind identified it as being from Senegal or the Gambia. It was later donated (MERL 74/114/1-2).

I worry sometimes that the gulf between MERL and its ‘world cultures’ and ‘volkskunde’ cousins has grown too wide to bridge. However, one of the first papers at the conference began by highlighting historic plans to establish museums of Britishness or of England. Here Professor Sharon MacDonald also mentioned work by Bridget Yates on small village museums, arguing that rural communities might be seen to have had relative success in both embodying and communicating ideas of nationhood. I’m currently working with Bridget to reconsider a village collection now held by MERL and feel that this model of exploring nationhood through rural holdings might be something that the project could develop and extend.

The conference went on to examine challenges to multiculturalism and the need for museums to face up to the politics of their creation and present-day roles. Dr Wayne Modest—who in 2010 attended a Museum Ethnographers’ Group meeting held at MERL—offered a nuanced exploration of these issues, challenging curators to face up to inequality, racism, and the residues of colonialism. With its diverse local stakeholders, MERL is far from immune to this call to arms. However, its collections suggest some possibilities here. Indeed, technologies that have seemingly lost their enchantment within the English rural economy might afford visitors the opportunity to reflect upon their potential in the developing world. In this way, a collection about England’s countryside past can deliver a museum addressing much more contemporary and global concerns.

Maori artist George Nuku at MERL in 2010

Celebrated Maori artist George Nuku at MERL, talking about his work to members of the Museum Ethnographers’ Group in April 2010.

One final strand of crossover came via the ever-present spectre of imperial legacies so prevalent in approaches taken by curators of ethnography. Is this relevant, you might well ask, in a museum concerned primarily with agricultural history? Recent work on archives in the MERL collection by Jane McCutchan has actually begun to reveal far more about the colonial consumption of technologies that we tend to consider only against the historical backdrop of England’s ‘green and pleasant’ lands. Of course, the very idea of Englishness has also long been exported overseas, as in the all too familiar pinques worn by followers of this hunt in India. The history of fox hunting is undoubtedly a conflicted one (from which I myself am not unconnected), and this colonial dimension serves to add a further layer of complexity to this story.

I’m not sure where all this leaves the future of ethnographic museums but perhaps these musings offers one or two directions that rural museum might consider. Indeed, there may be ample scope for us to subvert the western gaze and invite commentaries from other cultural perspectives, whether drawn from artists engaged in ethnographic interpretation, from Reading’s own multicultural population, or even from the University of Reading’s expansive international student body. Further to this there may be ways in which institutions like MERL can operate alongside smaller rural partners who are engaged in what E. P. Thomson termed ‘history from below’ in order to deliver and critique a national story that is at times bucolic and nostalgic and at others challenging and conflicted.