I am the Tide Travelling Mudlark, the River Thames is my time machine. 

 

Through found artefacts discovered whilst searching the riverbed at low tide, I bring lost and forgotten people and stories of London to life.

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Mudlarking is the name given to the whimsical pastime of searching a tidal riverbed – the foreshore - at low tide, carried out by people like me - a mudlark. In plucking a historic artefact from the foreshore at low tide, I’m almost certainly the first person to touch that object in hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Neither archaeologist nor historian, I’m one of the many ordinary people learning as I go, recovering important artefacts and oddities from one of the world’s longest archaeological sites.​ From significant historic antiquities to unusual, relatively modern items, our finds help us give context to London and global history, to keep weaving together that rich tapestry of our capital city and beyond.​

 

Mudlarking has exploded in popularity in recent years - look, and you'll find many books, television programmes and yearly live events on the subject - yet searching the River Thames at low tide is not a modern phenomenon. Dredging of the Thames in the 19th century recovered historical artefacts of age and importance, including the famed Battersea Shield, Waterloo Helmet and Head of Hadrian.

 

Mudlarking has not always been a leisure pursuit. Mudlarks of the past, on one hand described as cunning criminals, on the other thought of as poor unfortunates “compelled from utter destitution to seek for the means of appeasing their hunger in the mud of the river”* grubbed around in Victorian London, alongside ‘toshers’ – searchers of sewers  -  to recover items of value to sell for money, such as lengths of old rope, lumps of coal, iron, copper, and even animal bones. 

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Modern mudlarks are not permitted to sell anything they find, and a permit from the Port of London Authority permit must be acquired for the right to search the river in any way.

 

Our significant finds are recorded with the British Museum’s ‘Portable Antiquities scheme’ so that a record of what we have found can be accessed by anyone with an interest.

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* 19th century journalist and reform advocate, Henry Mayhew.