A Guide to Mudlarking on the River Thames

Hunting For Treasure

Emmylou Vaxby

• Publisher: Fonthill Media
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781036147020
• Subtopic: Travel
• Index: Social Sciences

Mudlarking bridges past and present by teaching river searching skills, permits, tides, and artifact clues.

Mudlarking is a bridge between the past and present, helping us learn about the lives of people who came before us. Maybe a fruit-seller lost a shilling while carting his wagon across the street and it rolled into the Thames? Or perhaps someone threw a bottle into the water with a message inside, just for us to find?

A Guide to Mudlarking on the River Thames: Hunting for Treasure will teach you the various skills required for mudlarking and advise you on the permits you will need, while sharing important facts about the river and its tides. It shows the objects you can find while searching on the foreshore: pins, pottery, clay pipe bulbs and other artefacts—some precious, some ordinary, but all with a story behind them. 

So, here is your companion to mudlarking, a guide from the perspective of a young enthusiast but written for anyone interested in looking for clues about the past and finding lost treasures, whether from the modern era, the Victorian period, or even as far back as the Roman Empire!

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Preface
• Contents
• Part I: In The Mud
• Part II: Rain or Shine
• Part III: Dos, Don’ts and Details
• Part IV: Cabinet of Curiosities
• Epilogue: My Latest Mudlark
• Acknowledgements
• Glossary
• Select Bibliography