Northfleet History Group - September 2012 Meeting.
SECRETS OF OLD FATHER THAMES
Sara-Jane Ladbroke-Hutt
Seventy Seven members and visitors turned out for the first meeting of the new season.
We welcomed Sara-Jane Ladbroke-Hutt to our September meeting, where she gave a very entertaining talk on her hobby of ‘mudlarking’. Sara-Jane has been granted a special licence by the PLA to search for artefacts on the Thames foreshore where the action of the tide means that a fresh selection of items is washed up twice a day. Although known as a ‘mudlark’ she does not actually dig in the mud but, kitted out in her steel-tipped Wellingtons and - most importantly - her rubber gloves, she scorns the use of a metal detector and simply looks out for anything which she thinks may be of interest left behind on the shingle by each receding tide. The River Thames has had items thrown into it or lost in it through all the periods of history, and many very old items have surfaced, some having been there since Roman times. She takes the three most interesting items from each find to be researched by museum staff and is given a report on them with an estimate of their value, one of her most valuable finds being a ring worth £1,100.
Even the more mundane items she has found can be of great interest. These range from bottles and their stoppers, to marbles, nails, clay pipes (always broken), buckles from belts, hats, shoes and breeches, bullets and guns, which have to be handed-in to the police, buttons with the maker’s name on them and lots and lots of pins. We learned that clothing was fastened using pins before the advent of buttons. They were highly valued and people would save up their ‘pin money’ to buy them.
Other fascinating items included a pilgrim’s badge, a kind of medieval souvenir of a holy pilgrimage and many old silver coins, one of which she mistook for a token and cleaned it with an abrasive kitchen scourer to the horror of the coin collectors.
A lively and entertaining presentation, after which we were able to have a look at some of Sara-Jane’s collection which she had kindly brought along with her for us to see.
We welcomed Sara-Jane Ladbroke-Hutt to our September meeting, where she gave a very entertaining talk on her hobby of ‘mudlarking’. Sara-Jane has been granted a special licence by the PLA to search for artefacts on the Thames foreshore where the action of the tide means that a fresh selection of items is washed up twice a day. Although known as a ‘mudlark’ she does not actually dig in the mud but, kitted out in her steel-tipped Wellingtons and - most importantly - her rubber gloves, she scorns the use of a metal detector and simply looks out for anything which she thinks may be of interest left behind on the shingle by each receding tide. The River Thames has had items thrown into it or lost in it through all the periods of history, and many very old items have surfaced, some having been there since Roman times. She takes the three most interesting items from each find to be researched by museum staff and is given a report on them with an estimate of their value, one of her most valuable finds being a ring worth £1,100.
Even the more mundane items she has found can be of great interest. These range from bottles and their stoppers, to marbles, nails, clay pipes (always broken), buckles from belts, hats, shoes and breeches, bullets and guns, which have to be handed-in to the police, buttons with the maker’s name on them and lots and lots of pins. We learned that clothing was fastened using pins before the advent of buttons. They were highly valued and people would save up their ‘pin money’ to buy them.
Other fascinating items included a pilgrim’s badge, a kind of medieval souvenir of a holy pilgrimage and many old silver coins, one of which she mistook for a token and cleaned it with an abrasive kitchen scourer to the horror of the coin collectors.
A lively and entertaining presentation, after which we were able to have a look at some of Sara-Jane’s collection which she had kindly brought along with her for us to see.