Mudlarking
Apr. 20th, 2026 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
squirmeliaI watch the ripples in the river from Blackfriars Station, and the sun is shining, but looking at the foreshore - the heaps of pebbles and bits of wood sticking out and the rocky patches, I feel incredibly sad.
I had a good year, finding treasure, all of it treasure, on the Thames foreshore. In reality I found pottery sherds and bits of glass and all kinds of discarded things, but it seemed like they were the most amazing things I'd ever seen, as they were from the river.
I learnt so much, about everything from Bovril jars to uranium glass to vulcanite bottle stoppers to milk trains to hat polish to aerated bread to bearded men to bullets to knucklebones to eels to fossils to ink. I also learnt a lot more about Londoners of the past, about what people drank (ginger beer and R White’s) and ate (marmalade) and smoked (clay pipes). But also about cafes and pubs that once existed and shops and societies, and also who made the items I found, the factories and the kilns and the bottle makers, and the streets that are no longer there. I saw a different side of London, a side of London directly entwined with the past.
I walked along the foreshore in many different parts of London, from Kew to Putney to Chelsea to Battersea to Vauxhall to the Southbank to Wapping to Rotherhithe to Limehouse to Greenwich to Surrey Quays to the Isle of Dogs, and at different times of day, at sunrise and sunset, early in the morning, sometimes even at night when it was dark and I'd take a torch. I saw London from a different angle, watching commuters walk by above me, oblivious. I hadn't explored the foreshore much before and walking along there, across the pebbles, the sand, the mud, with the river beside me was a delight.
Mudlarking became such an important part of my life. I consulted tide times and organised things around them, I carried wellies around with me and rubber gloves.
Mudlarking gave me a reason to want to get back to London when I'd been away and made London feel like it was my home and the place I really wanted to be.
I am sad that now my permit has expired I can’t go mudlarking anymore. The river and the foreshore will still be there for me though, and London, of course, will still be there, and I learnt to love it even more through mudlarking. In a few years, perhaps I'll get another chance.
I had a good year, finding treasure, all of it treasure, on the Thames foreshore. In reality I found pottery sherds and bits of glass and all kinds of discarded things, but it seemed like they were the most amazing things I'd ever seen, as they were from the river.
I learnt so much, about everything from Bovril jars to uranium glass to vulcanite bottle stoppers to milk trains to hat polish to aerated bread to bearded men to bullets to knucklebones to eels to fossils to ink. I also learnt a lot more about Londoners of the past, about what people drank (ginger beer and R White’s) and ate (marmalade) and smoked (clay pipes). But also about cafes and pubs that once existed and shops and societies, and also who made the items I found, the factories and the kilns and the bottle makers, and the streets that are no longer there. I saw a different side of London, a side of London directly entwined with the past.
I walked along the foreshore in many different parts of London, from Kew to Putney to Chelsea to Battersea to Vauxhall to the Southbank to Wapping to Rotherhithe to Limehouse to Greenwich to Surrey Quays to the Isle of Dogs, and at different times of day, at sunrise and sunset, early in the morning, sometimes even at night when it was dark and I'd take a torch. I saw London from a different angle, watching commuters walk by above me, oblivious. I hadn't explored the foreshore much before and walking along there, across the pebbles, the sand, the mud, with the river beside me was a delight.
Mudlarking became such an important part of my life. I consulted tide times and organised things around them, I carried wellies around with me and rubber gloves.
Mudlarking gave me a reason to want to get back to London when I'd been away and made London feel like it was my home and the place I really wanted to be.
I am sad that now my permit has expired I can’t go mudlarking anymore. The river and the foreshore will still be there for me though, and London, of course, will still be there, and I learnt to love it even more through mudlarking. In a few years, perhaps I'll get another chance.
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Date: 2026-04-20 05:23 pm (UTC)