Please can they be friends

https://twitter.com/WeirdMedieval/status/1519699517322452996

Frolicking through the streets of medieval Europe, settling for nothing but the finest pairs of trousers a boar and a chicken can buy.

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Warning: may contain sheep.

merl.reading.ac.uk/newsletters/ And when we say 'may', we mean 'WILL'

When was the last time you saw a cow? Not in a photo. Not on Minecraft. A real mooing cow.

For many people in Newcastle, the answer is every day, because there's literally 1,000 acres of common land in the city centre, where cattle have grazed since the 12th century.

(a thread) (image credit: Wikimedia, taken by Chabe01)

gm to everybody but especially this sheepdog riding a trailer and clearly having the time of its life we like to think that the sharply-dressed farmer is the sheepdog's personal driver, taking the pup to the destination of its choosing

Okay but what would people wear to The MERL gala? we would struggle to find an outfit because we are a building

please note this is NOT candy like a good book, never judge a brick by its cover

if this asteroid would slow down even just a tiny bit we would love to invite them to The Museum of English Rural Life

edition.cnn.com/2021/08/24/wor… next time it comes close to Reading perhaps it could just pop in

a friendly request for visitors not to try to use the Magna Carta to seize The Museum of English Rural Life

theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/a… [twenty-five 13th century barons rock up at the museum entrance]

not again

we, for one, welcome our new woolly overlords These two extremely woolly characters are Devon Closewool shearlings (meaning that they have only been shorn once before).

Here's a Closewool closeup.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and we have found something wonderful in our archive that we want to share with you.

Like many of the best things in life, it is all about bees.

(a thread) In 1892, there was a sixteen-year-old boy who loved bees very much. Not so much that he became a bee, but he did become a renowned and widely published bee expert.

His name was Frederick William Lambert Sladen. And this the story of one of his earliest works.

This year, we’re celebrating our 70th anniversary with 51 Voices: a year-long exhibition, available for you to view online, featuring 51 new interpretations of parts of our collection.

In our latest blog, learn about the five new responses added to the exhibition last month! be nice, say hello, share the space

Prime Bacon

https://twitter.com/ShropsFidgetpie/status/1402582624955154435

an important aspect of rural England's history is cows receiving rosettes for being so exquisitely rectangular Cows Receiving Prizes is a Netflix show we would certainly watch

Friends! This week is #MuseumWeek, a celebration of museums and galleries across the world, with a different theme each day.

Today’s focus is on beginnings, so please join us for a journey back through time as we revisit the earliest, MERLiest days of our museum.

[thread] Our story begins in the late-1940s, with two potential museums trying to find support.

That's right: this is A Tale of Two Museums. And we're not joking when we say that the first of these two museums was named The MELT.

Next month, we're celebrating Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month (#GRTHM).

We will be exploring the contribution of travelling people to rural society, their community, and their heritage. Romany Gypsies, for instance, have been in Britain since at least 1515.

(thread) This photo of a Gypsy family was taken by John Tarlton in Essex, likely in the 1950s.

We don’t know who the family were, and whether they lived in the wagon ('vardo' in the Romani language) or used it occasionally.

We would love to know more about the stories within this image.

For our youngest visitors, we now have brand-new Friday Fledglings activity packs available from The MERL gift shop! 🐣

Discover a new pack each week, created by the Fledglings team and introducing children to the natural world through activities, stories, and crafts. extremeley 🐣 wholesome 🐤 content 🐥

Leonardo DiCaprio unrecognisable in new Martin Scorcese film Gangs of New Pork

Everyone, big news: we are welcoming visitors back to our galleries from 18th May!

This is part of the joint reopening of Museums Partnership Reading (consisting of The MERL and @ReadingMuseum).

Head to our website to plan your free visit and make your booking today! we were about to hit send when one of our colleagues messaged us to say that The MERL iPad password has been FOUND

https://twitter.com/TheMERL/status/1390246938096852993

Good morning everyone but especially to #ThisPig This extravagantly square pig, a portent of squareness, lives rent-free in the mind of each and every LEGO brick. Even the bravest Bionicles tremble in awe at the thought of it

Right now, a lot of folks are talking about cottagecore, an aesthetic category romanticising the rural idyll.

This is (almost literally) our field of expertise.

So, this morning, let's chat cottagecore and, specifically, a cottagecore icon: uh, Marie Antoinette.

[a thread] (painting by Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, from the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, @KhmWien, accession nr Gemäldegalerie, 2772)

pigs but as you scroll they get longer — a thread