Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames - A Talk by Lara Maiklem

Mudlark (/'mAdla;k/) noun A person who scavenges for usable debris in the mud of a river or harbour

Lara Maiklem has scoured the banks of the Thames for over fifteen years, in pursuit of the objects that the river unearths: from Neolithic flints to Roman hair pins, medieval buckles to Tudor buttons, Georgian clay pipes to Victorian toys. These objects tell her about London and its lost ways of life.

Moving from the river's tidal origins in the west of the city to the point where it meets the sea in the east, Mudlarking is a search for urban solitude and history on the River Thames, which Lara calls the longest archaeological site in England.

As she has discovered, it is often the tiniest objects that tell the greatest stories.

This talk by Lara will be followed by an audience Q&A and copies of Lara's publications Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames and A Field Guide to Larking will be available to purchase on the evening.

Lara Maiklem is a mudlark. She searches for lost and forgotten objects on the foreshore of the Tidal Thames, through central London and beyond. Among the thousands of things she has rescued from the mud are Tudor shoes, medieval pins, Roman pots, Georgian wig curlers and modern wedding rings.

Her first book, 'Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames' (Bloomsbury, 2019), is the story of the river told through the objects she has found and is a tale of obsession, tide-watching, mud-walking and endless hours of searching in all weathers. Mudlarking was a Sunday Times Bestseller, an Observer Book of the Year, Radio 4 Book of the Week and Winner of the 2020 Indie Book Award for Non Fiction. Her second book, A Field Guide to Larking: Beachcombing, Mudlarking, Fieldwalking and More, is an illustrated practical guide for those who want to search for themselves, whether on beaches (beachlarking), in fields (fieldlarking), houses (houselarking), gardens (gardenlarking) and of course mudlarking in rivers.

Lara grew up in the countryside, moved to London in the early 1990s and now lives a ten-minute walk from the beach on the east Kent coast. She has been mudlarking for almost 20 years and has spent a lifetime looking down for lost objects and interesting things. Lara has appeared on numerous radio and television programmes and has written about mudlarking for the Guardian, the Telegraph, The Financial Times, The Spectator and BBC Radio.

Facebook/Twitter: @LondonMudlark

Instgram: @london.mudlark

This event is in-person only and won't be streamed or recorded.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Southwark Cathedral, Southwark Cathedral, London, United Kingdom