Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames

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Divided into chapters devoted to various mudlarking locations from Teddington Lock to the isolated Kent Marshes of Magwitch fame we make a journey into the past through the objects of that time. Fascinating and beautifully written from start to finish, Mudlarking is a treasure of a book that’s made me look at the world (and some of its “junk!

Another thing that irked me was her belief that a portion of the shore had been taken away from her. It turns out that Ms Maiklem is a very modern mudlark, but that didn't make the book any less fascinating - moving from the tidal head of the Thames to the Estuary, she describes what she finds on the foreshore and tells fascinating stories about the people who lived, worked and died on the river, and whose lost possessions the tides still erode out of the mud. I tend to have a big appreciation for books that manage to be both informative and entertaining, but sadly they are few and far between; Mudlarking is one of those rare and special gifts. The Thames Explorer Trust offers guided tours along the Thames foreshore covering Greenwich, Wapping, Rotherhithe, and the area around the Millennium Bridge.I have two American plantation tokens, both of which I found within a few feet of each other (I'm not saying where), and several years apart. I had no idea the construction of the old bridge slowed the water to such an extent the river froze over in harsh winters. She has other stoppers in her collection, the oldest – a mushroom-shaped plug of red clay – is Roman, and once belonged in the neck of an amphora. The Thames is England’s longest archaeological landscape,” she notes, and the many layers of the city’s history mingle at the foreshore: Victorian, Georgian, Elizabethan, medieval, and Roman.

The pewter relics were produced in huge numbers as souvenirs at Becket’s shrine in Canterbury, and you can imagine one of Chaucer’s pilgrims accidentally losing theirs on the way back into old London. I’m not familiar enough with London for this progression to have meant much to me, so by just past the halfway point the chapters felt like “here’s where I went and here’s some things I found” and “here’s somewhere else I went and some other things I found. I really enjoyed this and liked the way each chapter concentrated on different parts of the capital, from Hammersmith, Rotherhithe and right out into the estuary. Mudlarker newbies can get a ‘standard’ permit, which is valid for certain locations west of the Thames Barrier up to Teddington.

Whatever you uncover must be declared to Finds Liaison Officers and belongs to the Port of London Authority, but if not deemed of historical significance you may keep what you find. a mud that acts as a preservative to tobacco pipes, coins, buttons and shoes, old weapons, bones and bottles, and so much more. Tides have a reputation for being unpredictable, and anyone who doesn’t have a good awareness could get trapped if their exits are suddenly blocked off.