Mudlark: In Search of London's Past Along the River Thames

Author: Lara Maiklem
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 163149497X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Book Description
“Engrossing . . . evokes the subculture of the ‘mudlarks,’ who scour the banks for fragments of London’s past.”—The New Yorker The international bestseller that mesmerizingly charts quixotic journeys through London’s past, Mudlark thrills Anglophiles and history lovers alike. Long heralded as a city treasure herself, beloved “Mudlark” Lara Maiklem tirelessly treks along the Thames’ muddy shores, unearthing a myriad of artifacts and their stories—from Roman hairpins and perfectly preserved Tudor shoes to the clay pipes that were smoked in riverside taverns. Seamlessly interweaving reflections from her own life with meditations on the art of wandering, Maiklem ultimately delivers a treatise “as deep and as rich as the Thames and its treasures” (Stanley Tucci).

Mudlarking

Author: Lara Maiklem
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 140888920X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 347

Book Description
_______________ WINNER OF THE INDIE BOOK AWARD FOR NON-FICTION THE TOP 2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR _______________ 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. _______________ 'Enchanting' - Sunday Times 'Driven by curiosity, freighted with mystery and tempered by chance, wonders gleam from every page' - Melissa Harrison 'Brilliant. No one has looked at these odd corners since Sherlock Holmes' - Sunday Telegraph 'The very best books that deal with the past are love letters to their subject, and the very best of those are about subjects that love their authors in return. Such books are very rare, but this is one' - Ian Mortimer 'Fascinating. There is nothing that Maiklem does not know about the history of the river or the thingyness of things' - Guardian 'A treasure. One of the best books I've read in years' - Tracy Borman

Thames Mudlarking

Author: Jason Sandy
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1784424307
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 96

Book Description
Often seen combing the shoreline of the River Thames at low tide, groups of archaeology enthusiasts known as 'mudlarks' continue a tradition that dates back to the eighteenth century. Over the years they have found a vast array of historical artefacts providing glimpses into the city's past. Objects lost or discarded centuries ago – from ancient river offerings such as the Battersea Shield and Waterloo Helmet, to seventeenth-century trade tokens and even medals for bravery – have been discovered in the river. This book explores a fascinating assortment of finds from prehistoric to modern times, which collectively tell the rich and illustrious story of London and its inhabitants.

Mudlark’d

Author: Malcolm Russell
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069123597X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
A captivating history of London as told through objects recovered from the muddy banks of the Thames and the lives of the people who owned them Mudlark’d combines insights from two hundred rare objects discovered on the foreshore of the River Thames with a wealth of breathtaking illustrations to uncover the hidden histories of ordinary people from prehistory to today. Malcolm Russell tells the stories behind each find, revealing the habits, customs, and artistry of the people who created and used it. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, London was the busiest port in the world, exchanging goods and ideas with people from every continent. The shores of the Thames have long been densely packed with taverns, brothels, and markets, and the river’s muddy banks are a repository of intriguing and precious objects that evoke long-forgotten ways of life. With Russell as your guide, a bottleneck of a jug is shown to be a talisman to counter the ill effects of witchcraft. Glass beads expose the brutal realities of the transatlantic slave trade. Clay tobacco pipes uncover the lives of Victorian magicians. A scrap of Tudor cloth illuminates the experiences of Dutch and French religious refugees. These are just some of the stories told in Mudlark’d, which also contains a primer, giving advice on how to mudlark on tidal rivers around the world and outlining the tools and equipment you will need.

Mudlark's Ghosts

Author: Ian Scott
Publisher: Sheridan House, Inc.
ISBN: 1574092456
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 178

Book Description
Mudlark, build in 1953, is a modified version of the iconic Meadow Lark, a shallow-draft leeboard sharpie ketch designed by L Francis Herreshoff. But she is about to sink. Ian Scott decides to save her, and to do the work himself. This is the story of why and how he devoted many years to the restoration of Mudlark, and of what he learned in the process about wooden boats, the timbers they are made of, the designers and craftsmen who make and repair them, the tools they use and, not least, about himself. It is also the story of his imaginary conversation with Mudlark's ghosts: the designer, the naval architect who modified the sail plan, the commissioning owner and the builder. All are long dead, but their work lives on in Mudlark.

Mudlark

Author: John Sedden
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780141318684
Category : Children's stories
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
The story of two boys living in Portsmouth at the time of the First World War. Jimmy and Reg have no fathers, and help eke out their mothers' paltry wages by mudlarking - scavenging for coins in the black mud of Portsmouth harbour. When they find a skull in the mud, they unleash a chain of events which ends in the boys uncovering a terrible secret of murder. Seven women have been killed - is it Jack the Ripper again? For some reason the authorities are covering up the murders and the boys are arrested and then drafted into the army to stop them talking. Jimmy has been suspecting the king - he's always visiting the troops when the women are murdered, but the truth turns out to be just as shocking.

The Mudlark

Author: Theodore Bonnet
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780856179853
Category : English fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Book Description
In 1875 London, a young ragamuffin named Wheeler scavenges a cameo of Queen Victoria which he thinks so beautiful that he risks his life to save it. Possessed of a desire to see the Queen, he slips past the Beefeaters and wanders about Windsor Castle, just when a state dinner is in preparation. Meanwhile, prime minister Disraeli is struggling hard to persuade the Queen to end her long seclusion.

London Labour and the London Poor

Author: Henry Mayhew
Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.
ISBN: 1605207330
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 536

Book Description
Assembled from a series of newspaper articles first published in the newspaper *Morning Chronicle* throughout the 1840s, this exhaustively researched, richly detailed survey of the teeming street denizens of London is a work both of groundbreaking sociology and salacious voyeurism. In an 1850 review of the survey, just prior to its initial book publication, William Makepeace Thackeray called it "tale of terror and wonder" offering "a picture of human life so wonderful, so awful, so piteous and pathetic, so exciting and terrible, that readers of romances own they never read anything like to it." Delving into the world of the London "street-folk"-the buyers and sellers of goods, performers, artisans, laborers and others-this extraordinary work inspired the socially conscious fiction of Charles Dickens in the 19th century as well as the urban fantasy of Neil Gaiman in the late 20th. Volume I explores the lives of: the "wandering tribes" costermongers sellers of fish, fruits and vegetables sellers of books and stationery sellers of manufactured goods women and children on the streets and more. English journalist HENRY MAYHEW (1812-1887) was a founder and editor of the satirical magazine *Punch.*

Mudlarks

Author: Vickie Donoghue
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408173050
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 81

Book Description
Mudlarks is a tragic, beautifully realised play about three young men trapped at the wrong end of the river. On the muddy banks of the Thames, downstream from the bright lights of London, three boys hide from the police after a night of recklessness. Over the course of the freezing night their fears, secrets and dreams emerge, collide and combust revealing the desperate frustration of lives barely led but already ravaged. As morning dawns, their options diminish and just two questions remain: do they have the power to determine their own fates, or are they destined to sink into the mud? Mudlarks heralds the arrival of an urgent new voice in British theatre. Essex-born Vickie Donoghue'spowerful debut exposes the culture she grew up with and sees on a daily basis. With brutal honesty she explores teenagers' impulse to dream, and its futility in a reality that has no space for dreamers.

Notes from a Summer Cottage

Author: Nina Burton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780008467067
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
'I went for a walk around the garden. A great tit warbled above a patch of coltsfoot. I felt a thousand discoveries awaited...' Notes from a Summer Cottage by Nina Burton is a beautifully written nature memoir about the time spent renovating a cottage in the Swedish countryside, and all the species that she encountered her during her stay. Did you know that there are more ants altogether than the number of seconds that have passed since the Big Bang? And that in relation to their size, their anthill cities can be larger than London and New York? Or, that a bird's migratory instinct is so strong that an injured stork once escaped captivity and was found six weeks later having walked 150 kilometres, following the migratory path of his flock on foot? What begins with a renovation of a an old summer cottage swiftly turns into an exploration of nature, life and philosophy, in which Nina Burton reveals the inner lives and hitherto unknown habits of the animals with which she shares. Within the walls, the ceiling and the floor of the cottage and its surrounding garden, she encounters a host of animals--ants, honey bees, foxes, squirrels, blackbirds, badgers, pigeons, deer and many more--all of whom have made her house and garden their home, and all of whom cause Nina to reflect on their role within our world.