Day 5: Now for the Science, Part 1. Join me every day this week to follow this early 19th century shoe’s journey to conservation. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

In @financialtimes.com this week, my guide to how, when and where to mudlark on the Thames… There’s more in my Field Guide to Larking, available from wherever you buy your books ☺️ #mudlarking #mudlark #mudlarkingfinds @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social

Can anyone help me ID this? It’s iron (magnetic), I think it’s cast, could it be some king of cannon shot? #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

Join me every day this week to follow this early 19th century shoe’s journey to conservation. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

Join me every day this week to follow this early 19th century shoe’s journey to conservation. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

A pocket knife with a copper handle (or the bone/ivory/wood/horn scale is missing), late 18th to early 19th century. Found by eye on the Thames foreshore. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

14th/15th century pewter buckle plate. It would have had a separate buckle frame attached to it and is probably a cheaper copy of the more upmarket copper alloy or silver versions that were produced at the time. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

“Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone…” (You never know what you’ll find on the Thames foreshore) #mudlarkingfinds #mudlarking #mudlark

What a beautiful day to be beside the river… #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

Nigh on 250 years in the mud has created the most beautiful iridescent patina on this tombac button. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

An odd ball find today (found on my local beach yesterday), who can tell me what this is… top marks for the best answer 😉 #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

16th cast copper alloy decorated lock plate, or escutcheon, as found on the Thames foreshore. It looks as if it has been prised off the box or casket it was originally attached to. If finds could talk, I’m sure this one could tell a tale or two. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #Mudlarking

Lost tools. I find a lot of tools in one particular spot, where boats were repaired from the 18th century well into the 20th. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

Meet Bartmann… #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

I don’t think this is the jaw from a pike, I think it’s a zander, a member of the perch family with the predatory feeding behaviour of a pike. 1/ #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

I found a spotless die. I assume it’s unfinished, lost, dropped or for some reason thrown away before its maker drilled the little dots onto its sides. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

This stunning gold toilet case with tooth-pick and ear-pick dates from around 1600 and is in the British Museum’s collection. Next to it is the unhallmarked silver version I found on the Thames foreshore is a poorer man or woman's version of it. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

The first glutinous glob of frog spawn, lamb’s tails, bursting buds and primroses. Spring has crept into my favourite wood. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

I’ve found hundreds of raw garnets on the Thames, so far at four different locations. Some have been quite big, but none as large as this whopper. They are not native, so how did they end up in the Thames? 1/ #mudlark #mudlarking #mudlarkingfinds

Not a particularly old sole, perhaps 100 years or so, but real treasure. Just look at those patches and the metal studs on one side where it wore down quicker. It’s as personal as a fingerprint and spine tinglingly evocative. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

It looks like a hand blown bottle, but it’s an unusual shape, does anyone known how old it might be and what it could have held? #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

When a random piece of broken pottery leads you down a rabbit hole to a whole new world of medieval face jugs. 1/ #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

When a random piece of broken pottery leads you down a rabbit hole to a whole new world of medieval face jugs. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

I’m doing a foreshore walk for Thames21 during this year’s London River Week. Tickets up now: book.plinth.org.uk/e/avS8B30h0D... #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

I rarely use electrolysis to clean my finds these days, but when a coin’s as encrusted as this one it’s the only way to find out what it is. It turned out to be a knackered 17th century trade token, issued by E.B AT THE GEORGE IN GREENWICH #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

Remember these? (Removed and disposed of properly) #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

I’ve found all these pieces of glass cane and decoration on the foreshore at Bankside. Noxious industries and those with a high fire risk were banned from the City of London, so Southwark became a centre for glass-making. Glasshouses are recorded there from at least the 17th c to the late 19th c 1/

TOMORROW [SUNDAY] I’ll be at the fabulous @favlit.org tomorrow. Tickets available from their website: www.favershamliteraryfestival.org/programme/20... See you there! #mudlarking #mudlark #mudlarkingfinds @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social

A rather nice box drain (c.19the century) emerging from the foreshore. It won’t last forever now it’s revealed, and one day it will wash away on a tide. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

Sometimes the river sends me a message. Forlorn from Old English forloren (past participle of forlēosan “to lose”. In Dutch it’s verloren, German is also verloren, and Swedish it’s förlorad. This single word quite accurately sums up river at certain points along its course.

I went for a Sunday womble along my local beach today and found a piece of Amber! The amber that washes up on the east coast of Britain originally came from the Baltic and was transported by ice sheets spreading west from Scandinavia during the Ice Age. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

I thought at first this might be a ceramic Tudor Marchpane or marzipan mould, but now I think it’s the rear half of a ‘pipe clay’ figurine mould, which is quite a rare find. 1/ #mudlarking

In places the river wall is weeping. Huge cracks have appeared between the bricks as the land behind it tries to join the river again. 1/ #mudlarking

Can you see the worn Georgian penny? Rust will engulf whatever is lying next to it. Over time, nails, padlocks and old tools can become encrusted with pebble dashed armour that is beautiful and not unlike a caddis-fly case. Among the pebbles there are sometimes buttons and coins, like this

Mudlarking makes it into the New Indian Express on Sunday. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

Who knows what this is? It’s an early 18th century shoe patten, a type of ‘under-shoe’, designed to be worn outdoors and to lift the wearers and their shoes and dresses above the mud and grime of early streets. 1/ #mudlarking

A shard of 18th century Westerwald, my Valentine from the river. St Valentine is thought to be a 3rd century priest from Rome. I honestly don’t know what’s going on in this 15th century woodcut of him - there’s cats, there's pigs, there's dead people, really it’s anyone’s guess 1/

From the late 18th century, sheets of copper were nailed onto the hulls of ships to slow down rot and protect the wood from shipworm. This piece still has the tacks stuck in it. 1/

Available now from wherever you buy your books (please try to support bookshops and not billionaires). Link in my biog. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social

The light that falls on and reflects off the Thames is unique and I’m always trying to photograph it. It is unencumbered by tall buildings and empowered the ever-shifting water. 1/ #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

It’s been years since I found one this big and it’s cleaned up beautifully. The foreshore is littered with iron ship nails, but very rarely there are also big copper ship nails like this one. 1/

A perfect clay pipe, c.1620, still blackened with soot inside the bowl from the last person who smoked it 400 years ago. A fairly common find, but they still send shivers of delight down my spine when I pick them up.

I have well over 100 shoe soles in my collection, medieval to 20th century, and this is one of my favourites. It’s from a child’s shoe and dates from c.16th century, around reign of Henry VIII. #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

Thank you Sharon Ament and @londonmuseum.bsky.social for a sneaky peak inside the new museum today. The space is incredible and meticulously thought through. We’re in for a treat when it opens in 2026! #mudlarking

The nose and mouth of a beardy bellarmine or bartmann face. Each face, and I now have scores of them from the foreshore, is different. 1/

I’m coming West this year to @harvingtonhall.bsky.social in Worcestershire. Join me at Harvington History Festival on Saturday 26 July and check out all the other fascinating guests appearing over the week. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t delay! #mudlarkingfinds #mudlarking

A while ago I hit a sweet spot. Every time I visited this part of the foreshore, and searched a small area about 3ft x 3ft, I would find a bead. Sometimes there were weeks between my visits, but for five visits in a row I came home with a drilled garnet or a small hollow gold bead. 1/

Thames time tunnel… #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking

Shrimp are often found washed up on the Thames foreshore, even as far west as central London. ‘Dickens’s Dictionary of the Thames’ (I have the 1893 edition), written by Charles Dickens’ son, describes “upwards of 100 sailing decked boats employed in trawling for shrimps in the Leigh” 1/

@favlit.org has a stellar line up this year and I’m very proud to be part of it. Join me on Sunday 2 March. Tickets available here, see you there! www.favershamliteraryfestival.org/programme/20... #mudlarkingfinds #mudlark #mudlarking @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social