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LEARNING AT NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY LONDON

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A riverside walkway in London with ornate street lamps, leafless trees, and people walking. The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben are visible in the background across the River Thames.

Mudlarking with Thames Explorer Trust

What were the site visits?


Two groups of students from the Literature, Culture, Identity course went mudlarking with Chris Webb, a guide from the Thames Explorer Trust.


What was involved?


We met our guide at the north side of Millennium Bridge for an introduction. Following a health and safety briefing, our guide showed us examples of the historic artefacts she had found mudlarking so that we knew what to expect and what to look for before we set off along the shoreline ourselves.

Mudlarking involves searching the foreshore of the River Thames looking for anything interesting. We were told that you are prohibited from digging or even scratching the surface of the shore, so this is an exercise in looking closely and spotting anything which might be out of the ordinary. Our guide showed us objects ranging from the Roman period to the 18th and 19th centuries, from fragments of medieval and Tudor pottery to clay pipes. We then climbed down onto the foreshore and spent a while searching and collecting before laying out and showing our collected finds to the group.

Our guide helped us identify our finds with the aid of an information sheet showing how pottery glazes change over time. Students made notes and photographed their finds, then left them on the sand or threw them back in the river.

Assorted small rocks, pottery shards, shells, and beach debris are arranged in neat rows and clusters on wet sand, creating a colorful, organized display of natural and manmade objects.
A cloudy sky over a rocky, debris-strewn riverbank beside tall buildings, with a bridge in the background and a few people walking along the shore.
A group of people stand on a pebbled beach by the Thames River, with London's Millennium Bridge and Tate Modern visible across the water under a partly cloudy sky.

How did students learn?


This was a deeply evocative place to spend time – opposite the Globe and Tate Modern and next to Queenhithe, the last surviving dock in London to date back to the Saxon and Medieval period. Students were able to slow down and examine the foreshore. Away from screens and an airconditioned environment we were newly aware of the river, immersed in its smells, the weather and its history. Students found oyster shells and random bits of bone and lots of pieces of clay pipe but also fragments of pottery from all over Europe including German beer jugs, alongside Victorian bottles and bits of roof tiles dating from before and after the Fire of London, chunks of medieval floor tiles, bits of Victorian sewer, lumps of coal and the chalk used to smooth the surface of the docks. With the help of a chart showing the relative size of clay pipes – which changed according to the price of tobacco from the mid 17th through to the 19th century – we were able to identify the ages of some of our finds.

Each student chose one piece they’d found to write about for their assessment. We ask for an object analysis of one find, so students photographed and measured their find, wrote notes on its material properties and its location and then went back to research its history. Many objects related to the key themes of the course including migration and questions around identity. How does a piece of coal get from Newcastle or elsewhere to London? What does this tell us about London’s industrial past? What story does a discarded clay pipe tell? What role did tobacco play in Britain’s economy and how does it link to Britain’s part in transatlantic slavery? Our guide picked up a piece from a sugar cone – a piece of pottery related to sugar refining – which brought home how present sugar and the products of enslaved labour were in 18th and 19th century London. Domestic pottery fragments had us thinking about consumption in the home and women’s role historically in controlling the household budget and making those choices about commodities like sugar. Looking at the discarded remains of docks and the objects we found amongst the sand and pebbles gave the students a new perspective on the histories we study.

Key benefits for students included:

  • slowing down and closely looking at what we normally never notice – not a text this time, but the riverbank
  • discovering a tangible link to the past through the objects we found and handled and thinking about history and its framing in a different way
  • using imagination alongside research to build a picture of an object that unlocks a previously unimagined narrative
A group of people sit and stand on outdoor steps in the sunlight near a modern building; one person in a yellow hi-vis vest addresses the group while others listen or talk among themselves.



Student perspective

Simple icon of a person inside a circle with a red outlined star in a rectangle above their right shoulder, symbolizing achievement or recognition.

“We went mudlarking as a way of preparing for our upcoming assignment, but also as a way of getting to know London’s history in a more tangible way. Crouched on the Thames foreshore, searching for fragments of history, is, without a doubt, one of the most memorable moments of my degree. In all honesty, I wish more lectures took place on the river.”

Student


Faculty perspective

Simple icon of a person inside a circle with a red outlined star in a rectangle above their right shoulder, symbolizing achievement or recognition.

“This was the first time I’d been on a mudlarking trip with students. I was excited to see what they found but also how engaged they were with the process.

We spend so much time in Devon House looking out on the River Thames, and we read a lot of literature on the course that relates to the river, but being outside on the river’s edge and paying attention to the foreshore was a new experience for the students.

There was a real buzz about the morning despite the cold. It was a properly immersive experience, and I look forward to seeing what the students write about their finds.”

Faculty