Mudlarking on The Thames

One grey lockdown morning the phone rang: ‘Hi Dad, would you like to go mudlarking on the Thames in the summer?’ It sounded like my daughter was inviting me to a mud-wrestling contest, or at least a waist deep trudge along the estuary. Anxiously, I said ‘Yes, of course, thank you’, but then I was reassured to discover she meant an afternoon’s beachcombing organised by The Thames Explorer Trust.

 Unlike many other capital cities, London’s river is tidal so its foreshore is exposed at low tide. A mudlark is someone who scavenges in river mud for treasure, making it a common occupation amongst the poor of London in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Today there has been a renewal of interest in mudlarking, but on The Thames it is now carefully controlled by the Port of London Authority, which issues ‘mudlarking permits’ to accredited persons to explore the beach for archaeological objects.

 I met our daughter Jo, and grandson Sam, at Liverpool Street Station on a gloriously sunny day in June, we took the tube to St Paul’s and had our lunch by the Cathedral. Then it was a short walk to the north end of the Millennium Bridge where we met our guide and other members of our party. In the shade of the bridge we were told of the long history of settlements along the river since Roman times. Our guide brought her own box of treasures - collected before the PLA regulations changed. These included pieces of Tudor pottery, animal bone, and the neck of a bellarmine jug made in the Rhineland about four hundred years ago. We were told that in 2019 a mudlarker had found a fragment of human skull; radiocarbon dating revealed it to be from the Neolithic period. It is now on display in the Museum of London.

Fired with excitement that we, too, might find similar treasures we all made our way down the steep wooden stairs to the river bank below.  My first impression of the shoreline was that I was walking on a thick layer of broken roof tiles, fragments of shattered crockery and bits of old animal bone. According to our expert guide, the very first fragment of pottery I picked up was medieval. We had about 150 yards of shore to explore, beyond which we should not go because it is a sight of special scientific interest. Indeed we could see the remains of wooden posts marking the position of an Anglo-Saxon pier.

So, what did we find?  Lots of interesting looking pottery fragments, apparently some medieval and Tudor, but more were Victorian; scraps of Roman brick, and many pieces of clay smoking pipes. Jo found our greatest treasure: the bowl of a clay pipe, identified from our expert’s chart as dating from 1660—1700. Photographs were taken as mementoes, but The Trust requested that in order to preserve the historic nature of the foreshore, we should leave our finds behind.

It was a great day and a super vantage point from which to view the river, and we didn’t even get our feet muddy!

N.B. Thames Explorer Trust does not recommend accessing the foreshore without an experienced guide. Access to the foreshore requires a permit from the Port of London Authority – Thames Explorer holds such a permit.