Treasure Hunting
Mudlarks search rivers for the hidden secrets of the past and often turn up unexpected histories
Ben Gazur introduces us to the wonderful world of mudlarking and what historical artefacts can be unearthed on the banks on the Thames
It is nine in the morning and I am reaching down into the mud of the Thames foreshore to grab something that may not have seen the light of day for centuries. Above me thousands of commuters are scurrying to their offices with barely a glance at the river that bisects London.
One person must have noticed it, though, because they toss away a piece of litter that lands near me as I stand up clutching my prize – a broken piece of Roman pottery. For as long as people have lived beside the Thames they have been using it to gather food, as a water source and as a rubbish dump.
This is lucky for me and many others called mudlarks who now scour the Thames foreshore for the historic artefacts revealed every time the tide drops. The history of the city can be told from the things the river chooses to reveal.
“THE HISTORY OF THE CITY CAN BE TOLD FROM THE THINGS THE RIVER CHOOSES TO REVEAL”
HISTORY FROM THE MUD
Mudlarking was not always the passionate pursuit of amateur archaeologists that it is today. Once mudlarks were among the most wretched of the poverty-stricken levels to which the London poor could fall. With each tide grime-spattered people would clamber down to the banks to see what treasures they could find to sell for enough to pay for a meal. Pieces of coal dropped into the mire would be grabbed, cleaned and sold for a pittance.
Of these, some would achieve notoriety. Peggy Jones of Bankside was noted for wading into the river before the tide was fully out to rake up the mud and recover any coal that had accidentally been dropped. When she approached a boat being loaded with coal it was not unknown for a sailor to surreptitiously kick one at her. With her legs still covered in mud she would then go about her way through the streets, shouting her wares.
For the children and the elderly their work on the river could mean surviving for another day, or could cause their death from drowning, hypothermia or disease. Parents with too many children and not enough money were happy for the pennies that children could bring in through mudlarking. One 13-year-old boy in 1861 recounted how he made his living by picking up coal, iron, copper, bits of canvas and wood. Even fat thrown off a boat by a ship’s cook could be hauled from the river and sold for three farthings a pound. These mudlarks lived on the edge of the society whose leavings they picked over: “The Thames’ police often come upon us and carry off our bags and baskets with the contents.”
Today mudlarks in London do not have to fear the police – so long as they have the correct license. Anyone who wants to go hunting there must apply to the Port of London Authority. Mudlarks today are generally not looking for coal or other detritus, but for artefacts from the past.
LONDON BEFORE LONDON
London’s history long predates the very idea of a city. Modern humans are relative newcomers to the area where London can now be found, but the River Thames has long been welcoming visitors. Between ice ages it has played host to creatures as diverse as woolly mammoths, woolly rhinos, hippos and lions. Evidence of all these animals can be found along the foreshore, with mammoth teeth showing up under Putney Bridge and a 70,000-year-old polar bear jaw near Kew Bridge.
It may well be the presence of animals alongside the Thames that first attracted human beings to the area, but our knowledge of Londoners in the neolithic is extremely limited. A mudlark discovered the oldest human skull fragment found in the river when he mistook it for a piece of pottery. Radiocarbon dating revealed it to be 5,600 years old, but there is earlier evidence of humans beside the Thames.
The large flints that often wash up beside the river were once a valuable commodity from which razor-sharp tools could be knapped. Flint axes, arrowheads and small scrapers have all been found by mudlarks in much the same condition as when they were dropped. Rarer finds give an insight into the beliefs of our ancestors.
The Thames was a place where items were seemingly deposited for spiritual reasons. In the Museum of London one polished axe found in the Thames is made of a beautiful, mottled-green stone of a type only found in the Orkney Isles.
This would have been a high-prestige item for its stone-age owner, and would not have been given up lightly. Other axes have been found made from jadeite transported all the way from the Alps.
The Thames, it would seem, has always been a cosmopolitan river.
With the passing of the stone age and the coming of bronze, devotional offerings to the Thames did not stop. Bronze swords, shields, helmets and other small bronze items have all been found that date from the bronze and iron ages. The preponderance of weapons make it
unlikely that a warrior was simply out for a paddle one day and dropped their sword. We will never know whether they were deposited in the waters of the Thames as offerings to gods, spoils of war or another un-guessed-at purpose, but they offer vital insights into prehistoric London.
ROMAN HERITAGE
London was founded by the Romans as a city some time after 43 CE. Londinium soon became a major port town for the Roman occupation of Britain, with the town rapidly growing along the banks where the current London Bridge stands. When Boudicca sacked the city in 60 BCE much of the ruined town was simply pushed into the Thames to allow for rebuilding. Scorched Roman roof tiles that turn up near ancient Londinium may bear mute testimony to the horrors of the attack by the Iceni.
After this initial setback London soon became a major population centre and trade hub for the province. Mudlarks have found evidence of Roman life that might otherwise not be reflected in the archaeological record. Because of the preserving nature of the oxygenless, anaerobic Thames mud, bone artefacts survive particularly well. It is not uncommon to find bone hair pins with intricate decorations that would once have supported an elegant Roman lady’s hair. Bone dice and round gaming tokens made of bone show a love of gambling and games – and possibly frustration at losses when they were cast into the river.
“IT IS AS MUCH AS ARCHAEOLOGISTS CAN DO TO RECORD THEIR POSITION BEFORE THEY ARE WASHED AWAY FOREVER”
Organic matter also tends to survive in Thames mud in a remarkable state of preservation. When one wooden Roman hair comb was pulled from the mud it still had many of its wafer-thin teeth attached – complete with ancient head lice.
One of the most remarkable recent Roman finds from the river was a complete oil lamp made of terracotta. Pressed from a mould somewhere in North Africa in the 4th or 5th century CE, the lamp was simply laying in the mud waiting to be found. The next tide may well have smashed it, but instead a mudlark picked it up, and a new piece of evidence for the amount of international trade during the Roman period was saved.
As well as mundane items such as pottery and lamps, the Romans left some of their religious history in the Thames. Intaglios, the stones from rings with carvings on them, often depicted gods, but other items are rather less obviously holy. Male followers of the goddess Cybele were known to ritually castrate themselves to show their devotion to her. In 1840 a pair of highly decorative bronze clamps were pulled from the Thames that may well have been used to staunch the flow of blood from those who chose to worship in these ways. The Romans built stout walls around Londinium, but they could not stop the flow of history, abandoning their British province to fend for itself around 410 CE.
AFTER THE ROMANS
With the departure of the Roman army from Britain, London continued to function much as before. There was no instantaneous collapse of civilisation. Invasions by the Angles and Saxons did, however, bring about huge changes in the way society functioned, and this is reflected in the mudlarking finds from this period.
Instead of the grand stone buildings so loved by the Romans and Romano-british, many constructions were made of more ephemeral materials. At very low tides in certain parts of the city, wooden structures emerge. These can be as simple as hexagonal poles driven into the banks of the Thames to support a platform or as intricate as fish-traps woven from pliable twigs. Dating from the Anglo-saxon period, these wooden finds survive because of the anaerobic environment of the Thames mud. Because of their delicacy and the natural erosion of the foreshore, it is as much as archaeologists can do to record their position before they are washed away forever.
Small artefacts that can be taken from the river give us a clearer view of what Anglo-saxon London was like. Horseshoes made of iron can fit comfortably in the palm of your hand. What they considered mighty stallions might today be thought of as ponies. Coins from different kings can be used to map the ever-changing territorial claims of monarchs and the amount of trade between regions. One coin found by a mudlark was minted by King Burgred of Mercia, whose rule was cut short when Vikings threw him from his throne and out of the country.
There are those that claim the nursery rhyme “London Bridge is falling down” refers to an attack by Viking raiders under King Olaf II of Norway. Typically bellicose items such as axe-heads and swords from the Viking era have been found by mudlarks, as well as more pacific goods like coins and wooden hair combs.
The Norman conquest brought about a revolution in the way Britain was governed, but these changes can be hard to spot in the archaeological record preserved by the Thames. A coin with a Norman king’s head on it is fairly distinctive, but the pottery used in 1065 differs very little from the pottery used in 1067. That life for most people carried on with little alteration is an interesting discovery in itself.
INTO THE MODERN CITY
There are places along the Thames foreshore where the rising and ebbing tide makes a sort of music. As the water moves it creates a jangling sigh as shards of pottery and shards of glass strike against each other. For the most part it is easy to tell the period a piece of pottery dates from. Rich green glazes point to medieval ceramics. Outside the Globe Theatre the knobs from the top of money boxes can be found. Patrons of the theatres in the area would deposit their money in the ceramic jars that were entirely sealed to stop the collectors stealing the ticket money. Only later were they smashed open to release the coins. Colourful English delftware was made from around 1550 to 1700. A complete timeline of human habitation could be constructed from the fragments of pottery on the foreshore.
The most common find by far for mudlarks in London are the remains of clay pipes. Smoking first reached London in the 16th century, and it soon became an addiction for Londoners. The earliest pipes, often called Elfin pipes, are tiny.
This is because tobacco was so expensive. As the amount of tobacco imported to Britain increased, the price dropped, and pipe bowls became increasingly large to accommodate more.
The 20th century completely reformed London. When the Luftwaffe bombed the city, vast amounts of debris were thrown down into the Thames, where it remains today as piles of brick. They also left other gifts for mudlarks to find. Unexploded bombs still turn up out of the Thames with alarming regularity, and must be reported to police for disposal.
The Thames is, however, still a living river, with ever more history being deposited all the time. Often it is just beer bottles tossed over the sides of bridges, but sometimes it is something more special. Hindus living in London may leave small offerings by the river. These can be images of deities or even gold statues. Votive offerings to the river are among the earliest finds we have from the Thames, and perhaps these modern religious items will one day join those prehistoric ones in a future museum.
Sometimes it can feel a little like grave robbing to comb the Thames for the fragments of people’s lives, but the Thames is a remorseless grinder of history. What it throws up today will be reduced to mud tomorrow as the tides pummel it into the stony shore. If we want to reclaim the history of the city before it disappears forever, it has to be collected and recorded. Mudlarking is a dirty business… but someone has to do it.