The Californian Mudlarks

Bill writes: London Walks is an outfit here that presents a series of 2-hour long walks throughout London, for a mere 5 pounds a walk. One walk in particular sounded especially interesting, as we'd heard about it from our teacher Molly in our London Class--archeological beachcombing along the Thames. This is something that's gone on for many years, and those who do it are called "mudlarks."

So last week, Aline and I went to Tower Hill station, just outside the Tower of London. The weather was in the low 30's, not exactly the kind of beach weather we were used to, but on we went. The person leading the walk had been an archeologist with the Museum of London, so we were in good hands.

We walked past the Tower and the ice skaters.



We headed west along the Thames for a block and then, just behind Custom House, we all walked down past the pier to the narrow foreshore of the north bank of the Thames. (Now you can see why they're called mudlarks. Fortunately we found a very nice dry part of the shore.) Custom House is a good site, as products went through there for centuries and were often confiscated and dumped behind the building into the Thames. Plus, there was a Roman palace nearby, accounting for the roman remains found on the foreshore.



For thousands of years, junk has been tossed onto this spot or washed up on it as the river flowed past. Material setted down into the soft mud, was covered, and years or centuries later would be uncovered. This pattern has repeated itself for millenia, and about every two weeks material is uncovered, moves down the banks with the tides, and empties into the river.

Because of the action of the water against the rock, you can only find fragments and shards. Yet it's amazing the amount and variety of material that is laying exposed along the shore, particularly as you learn how to sort out the modern junk from the ancient. For instance, medieval bricks lay next to victorian ones. As you can see in the photo, one of the most common finds are the clay pipes, dating from around the beginning of the 1600's. The white pipes are the clay stems and the brick with the hole in the center is a medieval clay roof tile (the hole is where the tile was pegged to the roof).



Here is the result of a less than two hour's worth of mudlarking over two days:



In order to get some remaining bits and pieces identified, I made an appointment with Faye Simpson, an archeologist at the Museum of London. She was extremely kind to spend a half hour with us going over the remainder of our finds, and consulting with her colleagues as needed before describing the material to us. She then took photographs so that she could add our material to the museum's online database. She has a dream job--half her time at the Museum of London as an archeologist and the other half at the British Museum. And she loves her work. It's good to know such people exist.

Here's a sampling of what we found, arranged in chronological order.







It's especially wonderful knowing that these are handmade artifacts, for instance, knowing that the long indentation along the roman brick where it bends into a ninety degree angle was created by the brickmaker running his finger down the brick before he fired it. It's a tactile reminder of the past.