FOR centuries, people have combed the banks of the Thames, picking through the stony foreshore whenever the tide permits it, searching for treasure. Once, mudlarks were among London’s poorest inhabitants, sifting through piles of washed-up waste in the hope of finding something to sell. Today, London still has a thriving community of mudlarks, but those who roam the riverside are more likely to be archaeologists, history-lovers or people seeking a respite from the bustle of the capital.
One of the river’s more frequent visitors is Lara Maiklem, who has been mud larking for nearly 20 years, exploring the length of the tidal Thames from Teddington right out to the mouth of the estuary. Having grown up on a Surrey dairy farm, Miss Maiklem found herself missing the countryside after she moved to London to begin her career in publishing and started searching for an urban substitute. ‘I was desperately looking for peace and quiet; that’s how I found my way down to the river,’ she explains. ‘It was my own little streak of wilderness running through the heart of the city. In London, you can’t really feel the weather, everything seems blocked and muffled in a funny way. But the river is so wild—it’s another world altogether.’
To begin with, she viewed the foreshore purely as a place of escape, yet, over time, developed an interest in the treasures it harboured. The Thames has been described as England’s longest archaeological site and all manner of objects can be found on its banks at low tide, from prehistoric fossils to modern religious offerings. As London has been populated by humans for millennia, all manner of rare items are lurking in the mud—Roman pottery, gold coins, even human remains, have been thrown, dropped or washed into the Thames.
Denne historien er fra September 16, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra September 16, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.