‘Mudlarks’ dig up London’s past on the banks of the River Thames
It was almost 20 years ago when, waiting for a delayed friend, Lara Maiklem found herself by the River Thames at low tide. Stepping off a set of creaky wooden steps onto the muddy shore, she found the discarded, disused stem of a clay pipe.
Little did she know that her moment of curiosity would spark into an obsession for “mudlarking,” an 18th-century scavenging profession turned modern pastime that involves looking for ownerless objects that have been lost, discarded, or displaced, often by a beach or by the side of a river.
While Ms. Maiklem was unable to find in London’s parks the solitude she had enjoyed on the farm of
Flocking to mudlarking“Solitude and ‘me time’”
