MUDLARKING IN AUGUST

We have not long been back from our three week driving trip to Spain and France. The blog of the trip will, inshallah, be ready in the next few weeks, though things are very busy in the count down to our departure.

But, before that, and going back a few months to the beginning of the good weather in July and August, when Mark took the kids mudlarking - otherwise known as scrounging around in the filth of the tidal Thames!

Having read about some of the marvellous discoveries mudlarks have made here and here, and having written about the use of the Thames as an open sewer 100 years ago, Mark felt that it was probably safe enough for the kids to dig around in.

We met other larkers who were very helpful at identifying what we had found.

We went three times bringing a friend of Aisha's, Tai, on the second trip. Sally came on the last trip along with Tai's younger brother Joe who is a friend of William's and who was keen to experience the joys of mudlarking after Tai had recounted his tales!

Jo having a lark.

Our last lark was on the one weekend in the year when the foreshore in front of the Tower of London is opened to the general public. This was the trip Sally and Joe joined us on and we went hoping to find some of the royal regalia stolen by the parliamentarians back in 1643.

We didn't, but with our mud larking permits that Mark had organised, we were allowed to go to a reserved section of the foreshore and found lots of Elizabethan clothing pins. Buttons only became widespread in the early 1600s. Prior to that, clothes were pinned on! Complex costumes would require hundreds of pins and take several hours to put on and take off. There was apparently a pin factory on the shores of the Thames beside what is now Tower Bridge. The pins were hand made by children using lead for the ends.  As part of this digging Will found what he thought initially was an ear ring. One of the museum experts later identified it as a chain mail link from around 1500. 

Clothes pins.

 In all this if you look carefully you will find....

Pipe stems amongst the pebbles.

The maker's stamp on the heel of the pipe.

Fine crimping around the rim.

The pipe stems we found are up to 300 years old. A bit like cigarette ends today, they were discarded once finished. The smaller pipes are oldest as they date from the time when tobacco was comparatively rare and expensive. As it became more commonplace, and therefore cheaper, the pipes were made bigger and became more decorative. Finding complete bowls and stems is now rare. The later Victorian pipes could be very elaborate. The ealy decoration included simple crimping around the rim or perhaps a maker's stamp.

We found a lot in the end

We didn't find Boudica's golden chariot, as Mark had hoped, but we did find some old stuff that was pretty cool to be able to 'discover' after several hundred years. Pipe stems and bowls from the 1600's up to Victorian times, Mediaeval green pottery bots, bits of German beer mugs old hand made nails of an as yet undetermined age. Others on the day found bits of Roman roofing tile and pots.  The Thames is very tidal and fast flowing and each high tide washes up new 'treasure' from the sludge at the bottom, ready for the finding. What can we say .... it is London!

All in all, this mudlarking was indeed a lark which all of us enjoyed.  It really did bring the history we have been learning so much about here alive in a very tangible way.