Mudlark author Lara Maiklem scours the edge of London's River Thames looking for historical artifacts. Among her finds: Roman pottery, medieval jug handles and a 500-year-old child's shoe.
This is FRESH AIR. A gold ornament from the 16th century, ancient Roman coins, shards of medieval pottery, prehistoric flint - these are just some of the thousands of historical treasures our guest Lara Maiklem has found searching the banks of London's River Thames. The river is tidal, so twice a day it retreats, exposing its muddy riverbed and the amazing amount of historical stuff stuck in it.
MAIKLEM: This time, I - not a great - not a big space. I was up again on Tuesday, and I found a really great spot, and I found loads of stuff there. So I was going back to that spot, but the tide didn't fall low enough. So I hung around there for a little while, and that was a fairly small area. And then I wandered along the foreshore a little bit further, and then I looked at another fairly small spot. I find I find more if I keep my areas fairly small.
MAIKLEM: Mudlarks today are, basically, people who go down on to the foreshore of the River Thames. The Thames is tidal. So twice every 24 hours it drops low enough for us to get onto the foreshore and, basically, search the riverbed for objects of historic importance or interest. So these are things that have been lost over two millennia, since the Romans arrived and settled the area that we now call London.
BRIGER: And some of the ways you preserve things is you just stick it in the back of your freezer for a couple years. Isn't that right? BRIGER: You say that there's two kinds of mudlarks. There's the hunters and gatherers. Can you describe those two groups? Let's talk about how disgusting the river can be sometimes. I mean, it used to be pretty much an open sewer. It was - in the 19th century, it was disgusting. Now it seems to be cleaned up a lot, but it can still be pretty gross down there, right?
MAIKLEM: I spend a lot of time in museums and online looking at things. For me, it's - mudlarking is, yes, about going down onto the foreshore and finding things. But also, you've then got the rest of the week to research this object. BRIGER: Right. You actually say that if you find something that's actually considered treasure, it's considered owned by the crown.
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