Secrets of the Thames Exhibition

Mudlarking

I'm interested in anything to do with the River Thames, so the latest exhibition at the Docklands Museum, Secrets of the Thames, was a must. I was not disappointed.

This is an excellent exhibition, both interesting and informative, with great displays of items found on the foreshore over many years. This shows the historical Thames and takes one back to the earliest times, pre Roman and then forward to the mudlarkers of today still finding evidence of our past.

A painting of the River Thames from the 1800's

People have always scoured the Thames for items. Mudlarkers back then were poor people, children from as young as eight and older people. They were looking for anything they could sell, from coal to bones, iron and copper. It was a dirty job, and dangerous. Often there were corpses in the Thames, both human and animal, as well as human waste. These days modern mudlarkers are looking for items from history. To mudlark you have to have a licence from the Port of London Authority, and any important finds have to be reported to The Museum of London. However, there is currently a waiting list for a licence to mudlark as it is so popular.

The exhibition is nicely set out with some stunning finds I had read about in the past, like the Battersea Shield and the Waterloo helmet, but there are all sort of finds from clay pipes, coins, bottles, Roman shoes, toys, flint tools, jewellery and odd things like false teeth made from real human teeth, probably taken from a dead person.

The Battersea Sheild - Iron Age 350-30 BCE
found in 1857

The Waterloo Helmet - Iron Age 150-50 BCE
found in 1868

Here the stories are told and the finds explained. Around the middle of the exhibition room, a mock- up shoreline has been created with various things imbedded into the surface. One room has video interviews with modern mudlarkers describing what they do with their finds. Some use them for art, while others collect certain items or recreate a modern version based on the fragments they collect.

Mock-up shoreline

Teeth, false eyes and more!

A ring

The last room is dominated by a replica of the moon. The moon, as we know, is the tide turner of the sea, and a lot of the Thames is tidal (I think from Teddington onwards to the estuary). Certainly in London the Thames is tidal and often I see people milling around on the foreshore looking for items at low tide.