Meeting MERL: Rural Studies in Reading

From dairy to doorstep

Aged rocker

A pair of old carts

The Museum of English Rural Life that likes to abbreviate itself to MERL is a wonderful museum dedicated to chronicling the changing face of farming and the countryside in England.

This is a thoroughly modern museum, thanks to the recent and generous benediction of the National £ollery largesse. Inside you can enjoy remarkable collections of objects, archives, photographs, film and books all about the countryside, country folk, country living and livelihoods.

This place is a real treat and one to be highly recommended. 

They even have a dedicated Archers exhibit with short program excerpts, including the when John Archer took Tony’s vintage Ferguson tractor out to do a repair. He never returned and later that day, he was found him dead, under the overturned Fergie (tractor).

On a brighter note the national collection and records of Ladybird Books are here as part of Reading Universities Special Collections. There are have 700 boxes of original artwork, proofs and documentation from the 1940s to the 1990s, including examples of the work of notable artists such as C.F. Tunnicliffe, Rowland Hilder (one of my grandmother’s favourite artists).

MERL is a great day out in the countryside – enjoy it soon.