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Here, Sophie Haydock reveals the appeal of poking around in the mud on the shores of the Thames and uncovers the stories of four other licensed mudlarks who have found remarkable artefacts – and an addictive hobby

I arrived at the foreshore before dawn. Buttery sunlight leaked into the sky, reflecting off skyscrapers near London Bridge as workers hurried to their offices. The Thames rolled sluggishly like it didn’t want to be disturbed. I felt apprehension as I descended the steps, in wellies and head torch, from the bustling centre of the city down to mud littered with black bones, discarded oyster shells, rusting anchors and the city’s rubbish, washed up as the tide receded. But despite the dark and danger, there’s a greater pull – down here, in the clay, for mudlarks willing to look very closely, there are treasures from the past waiting to be found.

There are, admittedly, more glamorous hobbies. I didn’t imagine, that as a woman in my thirties, I’d be strapping on kneepads and inspecting the mud, metres from an exposed sewerage pipe, or cancelling plans on a Friday night so I could hit a particularly low tide. But mudlarking has an undeniable allure – one that more and more people have discovered, especially during lockdown, to the point that its future is currently up for debate by the Port of London Authority (PLA), which has responsibility for the River Thames and its tidal foreshore.

Anyone wishing to search the riverbed and take things away needs a licence. Before the pandemic, there were 400 granted. But now, numbers have grown to 5,000 and the PLA has suspended the issuing of new ones to ‘protect the unique historical integrity’ of the foreshore. This raises questions about the foreshore’s future – how best to respect and protect it. For example, on the north side of the river in Central London, one must use no tools, unless permitted – so no scraping or digging – the way to spot finds is ‘eyes only’. Finds of significant value or archaeological interest should be reported to the Museum of London.

But mudlarking is nothing new. It’s been a staple of London’s river for centuries, even before the word was coined in the 18th century to describe poor Londoners, adults and children who searched the dangerous mud at low tide to find things to sell, scavenging for coal or items from the ships that came to port from all over the world.

As well as a licence, mudlarking needs luck and a little planning – it’s important to be aware of the tides and to check the local regulations before setting out. These days, finds can include shards of Roman pottery and glass, medieval coins, tools from our Neolithic ancestors, precious gemstones and lost Victorian jewellery. These objects offer glimpses into the daily lives of people who’ve lived along the river. Each item offers clues about its past and, for mudlarks, it’s a form of detective work to piece together the potential story of found objects.

I began mudlarking, like many people, during lockdown. I was trying to write my second novel, following my debut, The Flames, a historical fiction set in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century that reimagined the lives of the four muses to the controversial Austrian artist Egon Schiele. I was feeling creatively blocked by the stagnancy of life locked in a tiny flat in Hackney. I felt uninspired, annoyed by everything and everyone, and a little hopeless.

Venturing down onto the foreshore helped me gain perspective, feel connection to an ever-changing landscape, and, most importantly, get in touch with the person I’d been before the pandemic. It was a way of digging into the past, of looking beneath the surface. It introduced me to a wider mudlarking community, an invaluable source of knowledge and friendship.

That day, when I arrived at the foreshore before dawn, two hours before low tide, I scoured the clay and mud for anything that caught my eye from the stones and rubble. I found leaden seals marked with the initials of their maker. Further along the river, the sunshine bright, I found something that looked to me – with its long stem and two concentric circles twisting outwards – as if it could have been an elaborate stick to stir a cocktail, discarded from one of the pubs overhanging the river. But as I scraped off a little of the mud, I could see that it was made of metal, rusting around the edges. I showed it to a fellow mudlark, and her eyes widened. ‘That,’ she exclaimed, ‘is very special!’

I looked at it dubiously. ‘But what is it?’ I asked. She told me it was potentially a clothes pin from the Iron Age, worn to keep furs in place. Suddenly I held it with new eyes, imagining how it might have been made 3,000 years ago, how it might have been used and how it might have been lost in the river. Everything changed for me that day.

When I started mudlarking, I thought I was only digging into the past – tapping into who I’d been before the pandemic, wrapping myself in the security of history. But being on the foreshore, meeting new people, being part of a community, and finding things that have long been lost or hidden, has also shaped my future. I’m no longer the woman I was before I started this hobby. My hopes and expectations have shifted, just as the tides endlessly alter the landscape. It’s a reminder that change is necessary, that what has come before can’t be confined to the past, but that history is constantly beside and within us, forever shaping what comes next in the most unexpected ways.

Here I’ve spoken to four other members of London’s diverse mudlarking community to discover what draws them to the foreshore over and over again.

Name: Fran-Joy Sibthorpe
Favourite find: Roman intaglio

Some people think my love of mudlarking is odd. In my culture, mud is not something most people get involved with. It is perceived as dirt, and that is best avoided. Interestingly, when I initially started mudlarking there were not many mudlarks from the ethnic minority communities. Mudlarking has not only given me a unique opportunity to find artefacts, but also to explore my African-Caribbean heritage. Standing on the Thames foreshore I sometimes think of how my ancestors were used as trade and linked to the trade routes, especially when I have found and researched my specific finds to evidence this.

My most significant find is an oval Roman intaglio in dark blue nicola glass, marked with a figure holding a sword, possibly Theseus. It could have fallen out of a ring or a piece of jewellery. It’s possibly been in the mud since AD43–410. It’s amazing to find something like that. It has been recorded by the Museum of London – we’ve a responsibility to declare our finds and show anything of historical or monetary importance. By doing that, the find goes on a database and it’s open to the public, globally. And it’s returned to you as a custodian, to look after it and ensure that it’s rightly handled and stored correctly. It’s mind-boggling to handle history in that way.

@franjoy7

Name: Tom Chivers
Favourite find: Medieval ring

I’m a born and bred Londoner, so I’ve always had a connection with the Thames. But it was lockdown that made me turn to mudlarking. My local part of the river is at Rotherhithe and I’d take my daughter there, just to get out the house, for that single hour. It was an empty, unused space where we wouldn’t see anyone. We’d spot bits of pottery. Before long, I got a licence and started doing it properly. The goal is to find incredible items from the past. Some objects become the holy grail. You don’t necessarily find what you’re looking for, but it’s still an amazing experience. You learn to look at the landscape in a different way. It became a bit of an obsession for me, and a balm for when life became particularly stressful. I’m now doing a PhD in mudlarking and the Thames foreshore.

For me, mudlarking is about curiosity, discovery, exploration. It’s not meditation, it’s not a place to think about nothing, because it’s a skill and you are always analysing material and the right kind of mud, and shapes, and where’s the tide – there’s a lot of thought process. It’s what sports people call ‘being in the zone’.

My most significant find is a medieval finger ring – it’s from the 14th or 15th century and has this glass setting, which makes it look very elegant. I found it in summer 2021. It’s twisted, but that might have been done deliberately before it was thrown in the river. Of course, that makes you think about why that might have happened. It’s a really lovely ring, but it’s made of lead alloy, which is quite cheap. It might have been worn by somebody who was perhaps middle class or aspiring, in the medieval sense – not an aristocrat. It was probably imported or mass produced, even in the 14th century. In that period, people were restricted to wearing certain clothes according to their class. Somebody might have bought it at a time when it was quite a statement to wear something beautiful if you were not monied. It’s not treasure from a legal standpoint, but it doesn’t have to be – it’s about the story it tells you.

@thisisyogic

Name: Gabriel Schmitt
Favourite find: Apothecary bottle

I’m nearly 16 and I’ve been doing this for about three years. I used to go with my parents, and there was something enchanting about all the pipe stems and pottery. It was my initiative during the lockdown as I needed a hobby. People my age are intrigued by mudlarking and I think I’m unique in being passionate about archaeology.

The Thames has been used as a place of gathering and worship for thousands of years – and whether deliberately or by accident, lots of people would leave things down there. They might lose a ring or a hairpin. These items get preserved in the clay, and the tides and currents of the Thames excavate the mud, so if you go down at low tide, you can find these incredibly preserved, beautiful items, some of them thousands of years old. My most significant find is a perfect apothecary bottle. I’d found a small one the day before, which was slightly chipped. So I went back to the same spot one day later and just as we were leaving, I noticed the end of a bigger round shape, submerged. I stopped and bent down to pull it out. To my surprise, it came out complete. It was about 9cm, and just perfect. It’s a lovely colour, with a slight iridescence to it – a dark, olive green. It’s so unique, and to find something whole is so unusual. I did some research, and I discovered that it was probably a plague bottle. Often these were called quack bottles – because they’d be filled with Thames water, then sold to people with the promise they’d cure the plague: a fascinating and unscrupulous way of making money. Some of them perhaps would have had medicines in, but many did not.

Mudlarking takes perseverance and patience. When I first started, I wouldn’t find anything and people would find coins right next to me. Once you get your eyes tuned into it, it’s almost like a filter, and you can find the most incredible things. Over time, I kept finding better and better objects until after a couple of years, I was finding apothecary bottles, Roman hairpins, game counters. Each item has its own unique story. Mudlarking has changed my life. It got me into archaeology, which I’m hoping to study at university, and work as an archaeologist afterwards, so it will always be something that I have a connection to now.

@thehistoryhunter_mudlark

Name: Caroline Nunneley
Favourite find: Sacred rosary bead

When you’re on the foreshore and it’s misty and grey, you could be in any time period. It’s me, the greyness, the river, doing what it’s always done, so completely magical. You often can’t hear the city, you’re crawling in mud that has been there forever, and you can pick up something that’s medieval or Tudor silver. It’s like a portal.

A lot of people talk about this as time travelling, and that’s what it feels like. Four years I’ve been doing it, since before the pandemic. When I started mudlarking, it was something of a pilgrimage for me.

My most significant find is an exquisite bead that dates to before 1550. Paternoster Square, just near where I mudlark, was the centre of medieval rosary making. It takes a lot of time to find very special things – it’s a mix of perseverance and being in the right place at the right time. I don’t mind if I don’t find anything. I already have so many magical sacred things. It’s such a privilege, it feels like these objects are being handed on to us.

Most of the things I find I hardly even wash, I just let them be. I don’t wash my pipes, just on the off-chance that there’s going to be a bit of tobacco in the bottom. We stuffed all the tobacco I found in a 1620 pipe and we lit it. And it was 17th-century Virginia tobacco. We had to open the window. I gave up smoking 22 years ago. It was phenomenal.

I’m 60 now, and I think nothing of setting my alarm for 4.30am and walking in the dark to the station and getting a really early train. I am always full of excitement and anticipation. I’ve never not felt excited about going to the river. What a privilege. We’re picking up the possessions of people who’ve died. We make and weave the stories. We think about these people and try to find out as much about them as we can. It’s all about being there, noticing things. It feels miraculous. It makes me feel part of a continuum.

@carolinenunneleymudlark

Sophie Haydock is a journalist and writer living in Kent, where she is curator of the Folkestone Book Festival. Her debut novel, The Flames, was named by The Times as one of the Best Historical Fiction Books of 2022. Her second novel, Madame Matisse, will be published in spring 2025.