With @olliedouglas.bsky.social of @themerl.bsky.social and my esteemed colleague Julie-Marie Strange @durhamhistory.bsky.social - in the recently restored Redhills, historic home of the Durham Miners’ Association and the Pitmen’s Parliament. 🗃️📜🐄

Absolute Units returns! We’re here with the most special of guests, Old Crockern, the giant who watches over Dartmoor. Plus @lisaschneidau.bsky.social and Ruth Webb. Listen as we delve into the fight for wild camping on Dartmoor, right up to the present day. merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/abso...

loved working on these episodes. huge thanks to @lisaschneidau.bsky.social, @olliedouglas.bsky.social, Ruth, and Crockern!

Absolute Units returns! We’re here with the most special of guests, Old Crockern, the giant who watches over Dartmoor. Plus @lisaschneidau.bsky.social and Ruth Webb. Listen as we delve into the fight for wild camping on Dartmoor, right up to the present day. merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/abso...

The MERL continue to be the Absolute Units of social posting

Hehehehehe Wordle 1,720 1/6 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Wordle 1,720 1/6 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

this is my Roman Empire

Absolute Units returns tomorrow! We're back with Ruth Webb and @lisaschneidau.bsky.social, picking up where we left off last time and continuing the story of Old Crockern and the fight for wild camping on Dartmoor. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/abso...

free museum visit right now if you can get to Reading, England and enter The Museum of English Rural Life

The MERL's LATE events are always worth being on time for!

have you been looking for a reason to come to @themerl.bsky.social? here is a very good one

Tickets are now available for our next LATE! Join us after hours on the night of 25 March for drinks, activities, and talks. £5 per person; £3 concessions for @uniofreading.bsky.social staff/students. merl.reading.ac.uk/whats-on/spr...

@uorlgbtsociety.bsky.social thanks for sharing the blog friends <3

As far as I know, farm archives have never really been used to track queer histories before. Given they mostly record the financial ongoings on a given farm, you can understand why. However, my year of research at The MERL has proved their potential. Find out more in this blog:

If you're researching queer history in England, farm records might be one of the last places you'd check. Yet for #LGBTQHistoryMonth, @timjerrome.bsky.social shares how he's tracing queer histories within our farm archives, and gives tips for future research. merl.reading.ac.uk/news-and-vie...

I've written her Wikipedia biography, citing and quoting your piece:

Great to be here @durham.ac.uk Institute for Advanced Study, with colleagues from @durhamhistory.bsky.social and @durhamanthropology.bsky.social who share an ‘interest in cattle’. We love chatting about cattle @themerl.bsky.social (and we love going elsewhere to chat about them too).

Neither travel nor snowstorms can keep my #ScholarSunday threads from their appointed rounds—so here’s my 264th of public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share widely, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ + blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...

Recommended for dark evening

This is just a really a beautifully written piece.

I had the privilege of visiting the MERL today and getting a closer look at the board

This article also provides a lovely similarity to queer rural life in America. Plenty of queer people lived and loved in rural areas, finding community and living their authentic selves.

This is really interesting and echoes some of the arguments about spaces of possibility in the “rural turn” in LGBTQ histories of the USA eg Skidmore’s “True Sex” nyupress.org/978147987063... 🗃️

This was a lovely read. I'm so happy she found a place to be happy in a way she probably wouldn't have managed in the city.

I hadn't heard of this author before, but "having beaten my typewriter into a ploughshare for the duration, I shall never be able to face going back to town life" might be the greatest thing I've read this week.

A fantastic post from the Museum fo English Rural Life about one of our early writers. We're so pleased to see E.M. Barraud getting this recognition! Do give the article a read!

This is a great read on the wonderful E.M. Barraud, whose refusal to conform to gender expectations during the 1930s, through the Second World War and beyond continues to have such resonance today, and seems to keep finding a new audience:

E. M. Barraud worked with the Land Army near Little Eversden in Cambridgeshire. We've got a copy of her book "Set my hand upon the plough" here in the Cambridgeshire Collection.

Amazing blog post from @themerl.bsky.social on Enid Barraud, who identified as homosexual in the 1930s and whose agricultural skills became a core part of her identity. Enid was - to put it in academic terms - a total legend.

A common fictional narrative shows people with nonconforming identities finding self-acceptance in towns and cities. This #LGBTQHistoryMonth, archivist Lottie Wood explores how author E. M. Barraud found the opposite, through rural work and the Women’s Land Army. merl.reading.ac.uk/news-and-vie...

We're proud to feature in the new Radical Rural exhibition at @themerl.bsky.social! Learn about our #RewildTheGhostWoods campaign and work from our friends (@righttoroam.bsky.social, @thelostgiants.bsky.social) from 14th February to 24th May! More details here: merl.reading.ac.uk/whats-on/rad...

This is another bit of good news!!

News: we're thrilled to have received £80,000 of funding from the BFI to help us digitise a remarkable archive of agricultural films and make them available to the public! Read more on the @uniofreading.bsky.social website: www.reading.ac.uk/news/2026/Un...

Oh, how lovely to hear my friends Lisa Schneidau & Ruth Webb discussing #Dartmoor, #folklore, and Old Crockern on the MERL podcast!

they do move in herds

Thanks to Justin for inviting me to discuss landscapes of protest on his wonderful podcast. I am such a big fan of Justin's work. Perhaps by fate, I am the third of 3 north-western English women discussing trespass, protest and commoning in the series. Listen to Morag Rose and Leah Gordon too!

This was a brilliant & galvanising listen: the power of giants & storytelling, the stars ARE ours, & so much more - so many things connected & woven together! A joyful listen @joevaughan.net @olliedouglas.bsky.social Ruth Webb & @lisaschneidau.bsky.social #RadicalRural @themerl.bsky.social

Latest episode, expertly edited by my awesome co-host @joevaughan.net. Great chats with the fascinating @lisaschneidau.bsky.social and Ruth Webb!

Visited Old Crockern today with my two kids. We all loved the experience. Hope he can still keep an eye on Dartmoor from there

@nationaltrust.org.uk hello there

this was a real joy to record and work on. huge thanks to Ruth Webb and @lisaschneidau.bsky.social for bringing Old Crockern to @themerl.bsky.social <3

A spirit watches over Dartmoor. His face is granite grey. His eyes are dark as peat pools. His name is Old Crockern. And today he’s at The Museum of English Rural Life. Learn Crockern's story on Absolute Units, w/ Ruth Webb & @lisaschneidau.bsky.social, out now! merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/abso...

Absolute Units is back tomorrow! We delve into the world of Old Crockern, the mythical spirit of Dartmoor, with activists @lisaschneidau.bsky.social and Ruth Webb. Learn about Old Crockern's tale, and why he returns today. Listen to past episodes: merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/abso...

You can tell that an exhibition @themerl.bsky.social is finally done when the posters appear above the urinals. There are some other indicators too. Stuff on display in cases. Text panels. That sort of thing.

Humbled & honoured to be part of Radical Rural @themerl.bsky.social Those many years, voicing what felt a lone, alt narrative from the muddy gateways, was always a chorus, a choir. The Merl as 2nd home, that contains all my eras (likely some of yours too.) Never been a better time to visit!

Delighted to have my work on Who Owns England & The Lie of the Land featured in @themerl.bsky.social's new gallery trail Radical Rural, alongside Old Crockern from the Dartmoor wild camping campaign @righttoroam.bsky.social More details: merl.reading.ac.uk/whats-on/rad... bsky.app/profile/them...

Very much looking forward to going to Reading and seeing the Radical Rural trail at @themerl.bsky.social soon. #ContestedCommons #LandRights

Truly honoured to be part of this excellent exhibition which you should all get along too!