The Museum of English Rural Life — MERL to everyone who goes there — is the national collection of English agricultural and rural history, housed in a purpose-built gallery on the University of Reading campus, about a mile south of the town centre. It holds over a million objects: ploughs, wagons, tools, clothing, photographs, and the full archive of the old farming press. The collection is vast and eccentric in equal measure, and the curators have made a virtue of the eclecticism rather than suppressing it.
The museum gained an unexpected following on social media — its Twitter account, which shared surreal captions of old farm objects, attracted a large audience. The programming includes exhibitions on rural labour, food systems, and the history of the British countryside. It is free to enter. The campus is pleasant to walk around, and the museum café is one of the better options in this part of Reading. Allow two hours if you get interested.