The Museum of English Rural Life's Watts in the Country project at Basildon Park

With the support of the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery Good Cause funding, Watts in the Country is an audience-led project to bring archive farming and agricultural films to new audiences and people who experience barriers to access, including young people, people with dementia, the D/deaf community, people with learning difficulties and audiences who are partially sighted.

The Richard Watts Collection is the life’s work of a Nottinghamshire farmer with a passion for film. For over three decades, Watts embarked on an extraordinary labour of love to trace and preserve films of all gauges, amateur and professional, relating to the development of agriculture and allied industries in the UK. Inspired by the demise of 16mm film when video cassettes began to take over, he assembled a collection of over 1,000 reels dating back to 1908.

To learn more about the project please go to merl.reading.ac.uk/news-and-views/inclusive-approaches-to-rural-films/.

On 28, 29 and 30 September, visit the garden room between 10am to 1pm to watch films from the Richard Watts Collection. Between 1pm and 5pm, the Garden room will be closed for private screenings and group work with group work with people who experience barriers to access from specific groups the project has been engaging with. The room will be adapted to each groups need.