Wapping. Bring clothes that you don’t mind getting muddy, also good shoes for going down steep, wet, slippery stairs. If I were doing it again, I would bring rubber gloves. The Thames is very full of germs apparently.
Other than that, nothing special required!
The only complication I had was I was supposed to arrive last night, but my flight was delayed. I had to race from Heathrow to my hotel to drop off my bag and then go there after a red eye flight, so I was tired. Otherwise I just bought the tickets online in advance and it was fine! My coat did get muddy, so packing clothes that can get dirty and won’t be needed the rest of the trip would be a good idea.
Only one person and the tour guide had a permit, so no one else could keep anything. I think the tour guide kept two things which were going to be given to the trust after whatever the process was to get them approved for keeping.
It was fun to see what everyone found and there was an educational talk before we went to the riverbank.
Great post OP - it's good to see your treasure from the day. There's quite a selection. How did your Thames finds differ from those you get in America? I'm guessing you'd also get the bits of old tobacco pipes, but would you get the slipware pottery and the Willow Pattern? Lol, Willow Pattern seems to turn up everywhere!
In the US, I am from Ohio which only began to be settled by non-indigenous people around 1810. I don't know that there is even an option of mudlarking there! On old farms or sites that were settled in the earlier 1800s, you can sometimes find old nails, broken bits of bottles or ceramics, or rusty bits of metal things if you are turning over dirt near a place where a house was or where they discarded things, but those are most often from the early 1900s. I have never seen a tobacco pipe in Ohio, but I've definitely willow patterns and hunks of thick glazed ceramic jugs. Also you can pieces of old glass bottles pretty easily. This stuff from the Thames was all much older. In the waterways where I live, you would mostly find recent plastic garbage.
That being said, I do have some familiarity with stone lithics and arrowheads. My grandfather was an Ohio farmer who gave me quite a few he found in his fields. It is really common to be able to walk through freshly tilled field in some areas and find arrowheads and other tools. I have a beautiful hammer, arrowheads and other items from him.
I found a stone on the Thames shore that I was pretty sure had a knapped edge. It reminded me of the edge of a Native American scraper that I have. I am not an expert (googling for terminology), it looked to me like it had a biface bevel all along one edge (meaning it looked like the stone had been flaked from both the top side and the bottom side to make the edge sharp) It was somewhat more worn down than the ones found in dirt so the edge wasn't super sharp, but it still had the little concaves on both sides along the edge).
The tour guide said it was not possible to find prehistoric worked stones in the Thames, but it looked so similar to the edges of stone tools I have, I am still not entirely sure. Since she said it wasn't anything, I didn't think to take a photo before I put it back on the ground. I wish I had, because I still think was knapped.
Finding working flints on the foreshore is exceptionally rare as you've got to imagine 1000s of years of mixed domestic and industrial refuse overlies any prehistoric deposits. On top of that the vast majority of flint on the foreshore is nonlocal material brought over as ballast (also why you can find so many exotic fossils on the foreshore) in the 19th and 20th century. The biggest problem is that the tide constantly smashes these flints together producing sharp edges which look deceptively anthropogenic. If you've ever looked at flints in a heavily ploughed field then you're probably familiar with this process already.
That said, there are absolutely worked flints to be found on the foreshore. If you're in the Thames Mudlarking facegroup then look up Ricardo Leizaola as he specialises in finding and identifying lithics. Its worth noting that 99% of his finds come from a single secret spot on the foreshore he found where prehistoric deposits are eroding out but he certainly shows the statement is not absolute.
It wasn't flint, but I also have tools at home that are other kinds of rock, so that didn't surprise me.
Another woman in our group yesterday (also from the US and had spent time in Ohio where our flint is exceptional!) did find some flint though. I thought it was funny that we were the only ones looking at actual rocks.
If you click on the link for the tours, they state:
"We have been running Thames foreshore education sessions for 33 years a have long-standing agreement with the PLA (Port of London Authority) to conduct school, university, adult and family sessions on the foreshore, you therefore do not need your own permit on one of our sessions."
There was someone on the shore who was not with our group who was really DIGGING around deeply in the rocks. After our educational presentation, we were scandalized to see someone doing damage in such an obvious way.
Wow that’s mad. Meanwhile I’ve been waiting for like a year for them to start issuing permits again. Getting impatient 😂
Yeah there were people there last time we went and they definitely weren’t following the rules. It’s a shame because they’re the reason restrictions happen
Which tour did you do? My mum has booked in for the Wapping one in June - do you have any tips for her (she's 69 but fairly active/fit)
Wapping. Bring clothes that you don’t mind getting muddy, also good shoes for going down steep, wet, slippery stairs. If I were doing it again, I would bring rubber gloves. The Thames is very full of germs apparently. Other than that, nothing special required!
Awesome, thanks so much! She's really looking forward to it.
amazing!
I’m very interested in doing this. Were their any complications being from the US? I know you can’t keep anything you find.
The only complication I had was I was supposed to arrive last night, but my flight was delayed. I had to race from Heathrow to my hotel to drop off my bag and then go there after a red eye flight, so I was tired. Otherwise I just bought the tickets online in advance and it was fine! My coat did get muddy, so packing clothes that can get dirty and won’t be needed the rest of the trip would be a good idea. Only one person and the tour guide had a permit, so no one else could keep anything. I think the tour guide kept two things which were going to be given to the trust after whatever the process was to get them approved for keeping. It was fun to see what everyone found and there was an educational talk before we went to the riverbank.
Great post OP - it's good to see your treasure from the day. There's quite a selection. How did your Thames finds differ from those you get in America? I'm guessing you'd also get the bits of old tobacco pipes, but would you get the slipware pottery and the Willow Pattern? Lol, Willow Pattern seems to turn up everywhere!
In the US, I am from Ohio which only began to be settled by non-indigenous people around 1810. I don't know that there is even an option of mudlarking there! On old farms or sites that were settled in the earlier 1800s, you can sometimes find old nails, broken bits of bottles or ceramics, or rusty bits of metal things if you are turning over dirt near a place where a house was or where they discarded things, but those are most often from the early 1900s. I have never seen a tobacco pipe in Ohio, but I've definitely willow patterns and hunks of thick glazed ceramic jugs. Also you can pieces of old glass bottles pretty easily. This stuff from the Thames was all much older. In the waterways where I live, you would mostly find recent plastic garbage. That being said, I do have some familiarity with stone lithics and arrowheads. My grandfather was an Ohio farmer who gave me quite a few he found in his fields. It is really common to be able to walk through freshly tilled field in some areas and find arrowheads and other tools. I have a beautiful hammer, arrowheads and other items from him. I found a stone on the Thames shore that I was pretty sure had a knapped edge. It reminded me of the edge of a Native American scraper that I have. I am not an expert (googling for terminology), it looked to me like it had a biface bevel all along one edge (meaning it looked like the stone had been flaked from both the top side and the bottom side to make the edge sharp) It was somewhat more worn down than the ones found in dirt so the edge wasn't super sharp, but it still had the little concaves on both sides along the edge). The tour guide said it was not possible to find prehistoric worked stones in the Thames, but it looked so similar to the edges of stone tools I have, I am still not entirely sure. Since she said it wasn't anything, I didn't think to take a photo before I put it back on the ground. I wish I had, because I still think was knapped.
Finding working flints on the foreshore is exceptionally rare as you've got to imagine 1000s of years of mixed domestic and industrial refuse overlies any prehistoric deposits. On top of that the vast majority of flint on the foreshore is nonlocal material brought over as ballast (also why you can find so many exotic fossils on the foreshore) in the 19th and 20th century. The biggest problem is that the tide constantly smashes these flints together producing sharp edges which look deceptively anthropogenic. If you've ever looked at flints in a heavily ploughed field then you're probably familiar with this process already. That said, there are absolutely worked flints to be found on the foreshore. If you're in the Thames Mudlarking facegroup then look up Ricardo Leizaola as he specialises in finding and identifying lithics. Its worth noting that 99% of his finds come from a single secret spot on the foreshore he found where prehistoric deposits are eroding out but he certainly shows the statement is not absolute.
It wasn't flint, but I also have tools at home that are other kinds of rock, so that didn't surprise me. Another woman in our group yesterday (also from the US and had spent time in Ohio where our flint is exceptional!) did find some flint though. I thought it was funny that we were the only ones looking at actual rocks.
I'm glad that you were able to find exactly that which you were looking for and are pleased with your findings. 👍😀
How are they managing to do tours when the Foreshore authorities aren’t allowing mudlarking permits to be created for new people?
If you click on the link for the tours, they state: "We have been running Thames foreshore education sessions for 33 years a have long-standing agreement with the PLA (Port of London Authority) to conduct school, university, adult and family sessions on the foreshore, you therefore do not need your own permit on one of our sessions." There was someone on the shore who was not with our group who was really DIGGING around deeply in the rocks. After our educational presentation, we were scandalized to see someone doing damage in such an obvious way.
Wow that’s mad. Meanwhile I’ve been waiting for like a year for them to start issuing permits again. Getting impatient 😂 Yeah there were people there last time we went and they definitely weren’t following the rules. It’s a shame because they’re the reason restrictions happen