A muddy refuge

Mudlarking

Lost and Found on the River Thames

Lara Maiklem

Bloomsbury 2020

Pb, 317pp, £9.99, ISBN 9781408889237

As children, nearly all of us have an instinct for curiosity and collecting. I still have a stone with a hole in it I found on Chesil beach as a three-year-old.

I encountered mudlarks in the 1980s: members of the Society of Thames Mudlarks, licensed by the Port of London to metal-detect and explore the Thames foreshore (the area washed over by tides twice daily). Museum of London archæologists would identify finds in return for recording the area where they were found. Once trust was established, some members would work on archæology sites. Over time, more people began looking for finds without metal detectors and detectorists became more interested in nonmetal finds such as bones, pottery and gemstones. The range of people expanded; more women were seen on the foreshore.

One such was Laura Maiklem. Her book is structured around a journey down the tidal stretch of the Thames, from Teddington Lock to the estuary. It retains the association of things and their associated stories with place and environment. Places are evoked, such as the tidal head without river walls, liable to flood and also allowed to drain dramatically once a year, so that you can walk from bank to bank across the (muddy) river bed. Amongst the mobile phones and 19th- and 20th-century beer bottles are clay pipe stems, the detritus of leisure,