We arrived in London at 9am with our permits in our hot little hands, met up with some of the guys that offered to show us the ropes, some seasoned mudlarks and some new to it as we were. We made our way down a green and slimy staircase to the foreshore. it was gritty, stony and muddy. Everywhere we looked there were fragments of pottery, parts of white clay pipes, bent pieces of metal and bones. We scraped and dug (no deeper than 3 inches as permitted by our licences) and peered and examined. We found all manner of things, one of the experts called Little Fink over to look at some Tudor handmade pins he had uncovered, "where there are a group of these, you often find something else" he advised. Little Fink and Leethedig started digging and Little Fink found a Tudor clothes fastener, a decorated hook and eye affair. The experts were very appreciative of the find and said it out to be recorded on the UK finds database. Little Fink was made up! (Here's the link to the entry on the national database... (UK detecting database of finds)
We spent 4 hours on the foreshore and we enjoyed every minute of it, at every scrape of the trowel there was the opportunity of treasure, very exciting.
The people that had been before couldn't have been more helpful or generous with their knowledge, so informative and enthusiastic.
After we walked back to the vehicles and cleaned ourselves up, we spent a very agreeable afternoon chatting at the local pub in the glorious Spring sunshine.
We posted some pictures of the adventure on Facebook (Mrs Fink's pics) on the Detecting forum (detecting forum), today Leethedig told me that we had made it on to the Mudgod's website. He is the most well known of the Thames Mudlarks (they are the detecting club affiliated with the Museum of London and afforded special digging and location privileges). (Hardcore Mudlark website)
When I told Little Fink the news, she said, "I want to be a mudlark when I grow up."
