Mudlarking

For thousands of years, humans have lost their possessions and dumped their rubbish into the River Thames, making it the most extensive and varied archaeological site in the world. For experts, its muddy stretches offer a tangible link to the past and a connection to the natural world in a chaotic city. Lara Maiklem moved to London at the age of twenty. Initially drawn to the city, she soon found herself adrift, longing for the solace she had known growing up among nature. On the banks of the Thames she discovered mudlarking: the act of rummaging through the mud for objects discarded by previous generations of Londoners. For the next fifteen years, his days were dictated by the tides and he would spend them searching for objects the river unearthed: from Neolithic flints to Roman hairpins, from medieval shoe buckles to Tudor buttons, from Georgian clay pipes to lost or discarded war medals. From the tidal river in the west of the city to its mouth in the sea in the east, Mudlarking is the story of the Thames and its people through these objects. A fascinating search for peace through loneliness and the history of London that recovers the voices of many Londoners who had been forgotten.