Jason Sandy: How A Riverbed Became The Largest Open-Air Museum In London

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Anne Marie Cannon (00:00):
Hello, my name is Ann-Marie Cannon, and
I'm the host of ArmchairHistorians.
What's your favorite history?
Each episode begins with thisone question.
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(00:22):
particular time, place, orperson from our distant or not
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(00:44):
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And finally, share the podcastwith family and friends.
In this episode, the third inour Mudlark series, I talked to

(01:56):
Jason Sandy, member of theSociety of Thames Mudlarks,
trustee of the Thames MuseumTrust, and co-author of the book
Thames Mudlarking, searchingfor London's Lost Treasures.
Jason shares his River Thamesjourney and talks about the
river's history and thefellowship he has found within
the Mudlark community.

(02:18):
Originally from the UnitedStates, Jason is an architect
and developer who moved toLondon in 2007.
He discovered mudlarking in2012 and has contributed to many
articles and books onmudlarking as well as lecturing,
appearing on nationaltelevision, and having an active
presence on social media.

(02:39):
Jason Sandy, welcome toArmchair Historians.
Thank you.
So excited because I am obsessedwith mudlarking and the history
behind it.
So let's just get right offinto the races and talk about
what is your favorite history.

Jason Sandy (02:57):
So you can tell from my accent that I'm not
originally from Britain.
I was born in the UnitedStates, born and raised in North
Carolina.
And I kind of grew up hearingabout the Elizabethan explorers.
Sir Walter Raleigh, Raleigh,North Carolina is obviously
named after him.
So I always grew up hearingabout this interesting British
side of history.
So when I moved to London 15years ago, I just became

(03:21):
completely absorbed in thehistory.
And unlike America, there'sjust history all around you,
thousands and thousands of yearsof history.
Growing up in America, one ofthe things that I first started
collecting was actually NativeAmerican Indian arrowheads.
And I absolutely love findingthose in plowed fields.
So when they would plow thefield, we'd go out there the

(03:44):
next day just looking foranything that was kind of pulled
up by the plows.
And I was always really excitedto find that.
So to find something in theThames, which is thousands and
thousands and thousands of yearsold, is absolutely
mind-boggling.
So just that tangible history,that's what I love about
mudlarking, and that's my angleon history.

So you started from a young age
treasure hunting.

Yes.
Yeah.
I grew up in the countryside.
And so there wasn't much elseto do.
So I spent a lot of timeoutdoors, and uh my parents
didn't have a TV while I wasgrowing up.
So I spent a lot of time in thefields and out in the forest
and uh in the lakes surroundingmy house.

So when you moved to London, did you know
about mudlarking or was thissomething that you just learned
about and then started doing?

So actually, I live along the river.
So I'm only two minutes away.
And when my kids were muchyounger, we used to go down
there at low tide just becausethere are a lot of crabs, little
eels that kind of swim around,minnows, shrimp, uh, all of this
wildlife, ducks, we have a lotof herons that fly along the
river as well.
So we were just captivated bythe natural element of the

(04:58):
river.
And I had no idea that youcould actually find historical
artifacts.
So my first uh first kind ofencounter with mudlarking was I
was watching the NationalGeographic Channel, and there
was a guy from Chicago that cameto London and met some mudlarks
and went treasure hunting alongthe River Thames.
And after one hour, I wasabsolutely mind-blown at what

(05:19):
they were finding along theriver at low tide.
So that was my first uh kind ofintroduction to mudlarking, and
literally the next weekend Iwas down on the Thames searching
for myself.
So when I found that first pipebowl, I was just really beside
myself, knowing that that was300 years old.
That's the oldest thing I'dever found before.

That was how long ago?

Uh so I started mudlarking 10 years ago, April
2012.

All right.
So then you were hocked.

Yeah, they actually call my wife a Thames widow
because I'm never at home.
I'm always at down along theriver, uh, night and day, even
though it's just a hobby.
Uh I have a full-time job, butuh it's an all-consuming hobby.
Once the bug is bitten, you'reyou're hooked instantly.
As I think you found outyourself.

Oh, yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
I love it.
I like I said, I was in Londonfor 10 days and I spent five of
them mudlarking.
So next time I just want to goto go mudlarking because I I
don't want to go to all thoseother places and be distracted
from it is.
I have it it's it's a bug.
It's it's infectious, and Imean if you're into it, there's

(06:34):
certain people that I think taketo it, right?

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Then from there one of the things I I've
noticed about the mudlarkcommunity in London is that
people are really friendly, andit's not like they're um
competing with each other.
It seems like they like to helpeach other.
Some, you know, in differentpeople focus on different
artifacts that they're reallyinterested in.

(07:02):
So what is your favorite kindof period and artifact to find?

So as a high school student in Virginia, my parents
forced me to take Latin, whichI was like, this is a dead
language.
I'm not interested in takingLatin, dad.
Why do I need to take Latin?
Uh but he had gotten his PhD inclassical studies and was all
about ancient Greece and ancientRome.
So he wanted to instill thatinto his two sons.

(07:30):
So both my brother and I wereforced to take Latin kind of
against our will.
But that kind of just got meinterested about Roman history.
And my brother and I dideventually go to Rome on
holiday, uh, on vacation, and itwas absolutely fabulous.
Just it's a living museum.
You just walk through thestreets, and everything is just
so old and ancient.

(07:50):
Uh, so coming to London, I wasalways interested in how London
began.
And it was actually founded bythe Romans in AD 43.
So 10 years after Christ diedis when London was started by
the Romans.
So that's tangible connectionwith that time period, ancient
Rome.
So to find something uh that'sfrom that time period and to

(08:13):
hold it in your hand, knowingthat the last person to touch
that lived 2,000 years ago, thatis just mind-blowing.

So you love the so that's yeah, the Roman
history.

Yeah, absolutely.
That's uh uh I go to a specificpatch of the foreshore which
always has Roman artifacts, andI tend to find something Roman
there every time.

So Wow.
So what's your favorite find?

Well, as you can guess, it's a Roman find.
It's actually a a hairpin.
So women, a lot of times, evenin Japan, wear their hair up in
buns and put a pin, a long pinthrough it to secure the bun in
place.
And back in the Flavian period,around 60 AD, it was very

(09:00):
fashionable to wear your hair inhigh false curls, and then you
would have a large braided,almost like bun uh at the back,
and we'd secure that withmultiple pins.
And the pin that I found has abeautiful figurine carved into
it.
It's made of bone and it showsa woman.
And maybe we can put this onyour website so that listeners

(09:21):
can actually see that.
Yeah.
But that's one of my favoriteartifacts, and it was actually
uh I donated it to the Museum ofLondon, and it's now on
permanent display within themuseum.
So now hundreds, thousands ofpeople can go see it, and it's
on display in the generalpublic.
So that's the absolute thrillof mudlarking is to find
something, rescue that historythat would have been washed out

(09:42):
to sea eventually, and then haveit put on permanent display for
everyone to see, enjoy, and tolearn from and research.

How long ago did you find that?

So, as it happens, my dad seems to be my lucky
charm.
And uh he was visiting London,and this was before everyone
needed a permit to search evenby eye.
Uh, so he when I were justwalking uh along the the
foreshore at low tide, and itwas actually a really bad low
tide.
I think this was back in 2014,and we literally just stumbled

(10:14):
upon it and peered down, and itwas staring straight up at me uh
from the riverbed, and it wasjust a holy grail moment.

Wow.
Just it was it wasn't even likein the mud.

No, it was just washed out, literally staring at
me.

That's amazing.
You're a member of the Societyof Thames mudlarks, and so when
did when did that happen?
When were you um did you didthey approach you or did you
approach them?

So in order to get into the society, do you have to
put your name on a waitinglist?
Uh so it's limited to 50people.
That's regulated by the Port ofLondon authority.
Uh so it's pretty much somebodyeither has to give up their uh
place or somebody has tounfortunately die in order for
new members to get in.

Oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah, so actually over the last uh two to three
years, because of COVID, noone's uh been able to join the
society because of the cap.
Uh fortunately, in Septemberthis year, we're allowing eight
new members into the society,uh, which is very good.
Um and so fortunately I was letin after six years on the
waiting list, I was let in backin 2018.

And from what Simon said, you have to have a
history of turning things in anduh that are of historically
relevant and important.
Um, so is that something thatyou had started doing from the
very beginning, or did you dothat once you got on the list?

So you start from the very beginning.
As a normal permit holder, whenyou get the permit, it says
that anything that's 300 yearsor older, you have to uh record
with the Museum of London.
So I have an appointment withthe museum, or used to have an
appointment with the museum, uh,once every three months just to
kind of take in my um olderfinds, show them, and have them

(12:05):
recorded.
Now I've worked uh very closelywith the Museum of London.
It actually taught me how torecord the artifacts myself.
So I can upload those to theBritish Museum's website, which
is called the PortableAntiquities Scheme, and then
it's verified by the findsliaison officer that works at
the Museum of London.
So fortunately, I can do all ofthat recording myself.

(12:27):
I'm a self-recorder, which isfantastic.
Yeah.

Yeah.
How often do you go down to theforeshore?

I would say on average it's about once a week.
So, as you know from your ownexperience, it's always kind of
tide-dependent.
The low tides are typically thereally good low tides are every
two weeks.
So you kind of uh I map out mywhole year and kind of put all
the key dates in my calendar soI know exactly what I need to
plan around to make sure I don'tend up meeting friends instead

(12:56):
of going down onto the foreshorewhen it's super low.
So I tend to go uh about twiceon the super low tides and then
I wait every two weeks and thengo twice again, but on average
it's about once a week.

I always was curious about that.
If you lived there, like howoften do you go down there?

Yeah, it kind of depends on your work schedule
and how close you live to theRiver Fortune, very close.
Uh, so some days I can do twotides, so both the morning and
the evening tides.
And then the more productiveareas are more towards central
London, so then I have to travelinto central London.
But yeah, it kind of depends onhow much how much spare time

(13:36):
you have.
And with two small children, Ijust didn't have a lot of spare
time.
But yeah, I I go when I can.

Yeah.
You've been doing this for awhile, and you co-authored a
book.

Why don't you tell us about the book?
Yeah, so we, as you mentionedearlier, we have a great
community of mudlarks here inLondon, and we end up spending a
lot of time together because weshare that common interest of
history.
Uh, a lot of times I don't evenknow what other people do.
We just chat about what wefound that day and what this
other person had found and havea proper catch up.

(14:10):
So normally we go mudlarkingfor about four hours and then go
to the cafe or to get lunchafterwards or go for breakfast
if it's a surly, uh super earlymorning tide.
So, within the book, what Iwanted to do is capture the best
artifacts that have been foundby the whole community of
mudlarks.
So there's over 50 mudlarksrepresented within the books,
and I kind of show theirabsolute best finds, and we've

(14:33):
organized those so they're kindof chronological and tell the
whole story of London just fromthe artifacts that have been
found in the river.
So some of the oldest thingsthat we find are uh fossils,
which are up to 200 millionyears old, and then flint tools,
which are from Mesolithic,Bronze Age, Iron Age.
They kind of made thosethroughout a long period of

(14:55):
time.
But those two of these are theoldest artifacts that we find in
the Thames.
Then we go into the Romanperiod, medieval period, uh,
Vikings, London uh had severalViking attacks during about the
9th century, uh, 10th century.
And then we move on to theTudor times, on to the Stuart uh
kings and queens and whatpeople wore and lost during that

(15:17):
time period, Georgian,Victorian, and then up into the
modern day period.
But what we're trying to do istell them the stories not about
the kings and queens, but abouteveryday people, so that we can
relate to them.
And a lot of the stuff that wefind down there is not like
precious silver or gold objects.
It's more the everyday items,the utilitarian items.

(15:38):
And that just really resonateswith us now because we can
relate to that and see howstyles have changed over the
years and see how people uhadorn themselves with uh
jewelry, with cufflinks, withshoe buckles.
So all of these small thingsjust open a window to the past
and really kind of reveal thehistory through these found

(15:58):
objects.

One of the things in your book, and I this
is a stupid question, but I wasgoing through it today, and
there's some green cufflinksthat you found, paste cufflinks.
Were they together?

Yes.
Yeah.

Because it it looked you took a picture.
Is that exactly how you foundthem?

Yes.
Yeah, so back then uh cufflinkswere double-sided, so you had
uh a link on both sides, whereastoday normally you just have
one side that's decorated andthe other is just like that
pivot rod that kind of securesit to the back of the link.
So they were actually connectedtogether with a small loop
fastener.
Uh so a lot of times the reasonwhy they fell off and were lost

(16:41):
in the Thames is because oneside pops off and the other side
falls into the river.
So you normally don't find themtogether.
But this is one of the rareones that I found that was
actually still linked together.

Oh, that's cool.
That's cool.
Uh how old were they?

So those about the Georgian period, so 18th
century.
Wow.

Pretty color of green, too.

Yeah, it is.
So a lot of times they wereactually using colored glass to
imitate more precious gemstones.
So it would have been worn byeveryday people, so not kings or
queens, but um people like youand you and I.
And what they would do is theywould actually put a silver foil
behind the glass and they wouldkind of chamfer the glass, cut

(17:22):
the glass to really make it uhlook like a precious gemstone.
And then that was then enclosedor encased set within uh either
a brass setting, brass setting,or a pugia setting.
And the brass was highlypolished, so it did look like
gold.
And when you'd have a verystriking green stone in there,
it looked like an emerald.
So you could do a pretty goodfake job uh by cutting glass and

(17:47):
then setting it in a verybright colored uh brass setting.

Wow.
So what's the name of the book?

Uh it's called Thames Mudlarking, Searching for
London's Lost Treasures, andit's available at all good
bookshops, both online and instores.
And it costs less than tendollars, I think, in the States,
uh, depending on where you'reit's a lovely book.

It's a great book.
I'm holding it up right now.
You can't see me, listeners,but it's beautiful.
I love the paper, I love thephotos, I love the way that it's
organized.
Yeah.
And so your co-author is NickStevens.
So is he like a friend of yoursthat you met Mudlarking?

(18:30):
And you're like, we shouldwrite a book about this.

Yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
And because we have a lot offriends, uh, we really wanted to
kind of, as I mentioned before,bring the community together.
And he's found some uhabsolutely stunning artifacts,
and one of the big ones, which Ithink you might have seen, is a
little bit shocking, but hefound the complete skeleton of a
12-year-old girl from themid-18th century.

(18:54):
Uh so that's one of Nick's bestfinds.
What year did he find that?
Uh I think it was 2009, butdon't quote me on that.
So he immediately called thepolice.
He did, yes.
And because the tide wasactually coming in, the skull
was submerged by the time heactually the police actually

(19:16):
arrived.
And uh he actually had to put astake kind of beside the body
and then go back and retrieve itunderwater.
So he literally said it waslike pulling a bowling ball out
of the mud.
He had to put his fingers inthe eye sockets and just lift it
up slowly.

But he didn't want to move it because it it
was a potential crime scene,right?
Or something.

Exactly.
Yeah.
And the police came, but theydidn't have the rubber boots on.
Uh, and because the tide hadalready come in slightly, uh,
Nick had to go wading out andliterally just kind of search
underwater where you put thestake and then uh pull the skull
out.
And then a team ofarchaeologists went out to
excavate the whole skeleton uh afew weeks later.

And they determined uh it was a girl, 12
years-ish.

Yes, so it was taken away by the Thames
Discovery Program.
They're the company or theprogram that excavated it, and
they're trained archaeologists,and they did uh some radiocarbon
dating in order to establishthe age, and um they fully
inspected the whole skeleton,and they said that she was
malnourished, and they thinkthat's the cause of death, and
that she also had rickets, uh,which is quite a common disease

(20:28):
back then uh because ofmalnutrition.
So they actually analyzed herteeth, and um, Nick wants to
have further tests done so theycan establish what she ate, what
her diet was, that type ofthing.
Uh, because these days they canreally analyze and find out a
lot about uh what what theirdiet was just from their uh
teeth.

It's sad.

Yeah, very sad.
Yeah.

So where is the skeleton today?

I believe it's still with the Thames Discovery
program.
They have it in their storageunit.

So, what was the strangest thing you've ever
found?

Yeah, unfortunately, we do find bodies
down there.
So that's probably the thestrangest and more gruesome
things that we find.
And not old like NYX, but uhlike from the night before uh
suicide victims uh washed up andface down in the mud.
So yeah, it's it's veryheartbreaking and obviously it's

(21:28):
very disturbing.
Normally I go down to gomudlarking to get away from the
the kind of stress of the city,and the last thing you want to
do is is find someone down thereuh in that condition.

I never even thought about that.
So let's see, where can we findyou?

Uh so I post all of my finds on Instagram, so it's
uh at Jason Mudlark all oneword, and I post several times a
week and just kind of show youum what I'm up to, my favorite
finds that I found recently, andalso upcoming events.
Uh so for instance, this comingSeptember, we've been
collaborating with the TotallyThames Festival, uh, the Thames

(22:13):
Festival Trust, and we'reputting on a whole series of
mudlarking exhibitionsthroughout London, which is
quite spectacular because we'reactually every weekend going to
a different historic venue anddifferent mudlarks will be
displaying their collectionsthere.
So we have over 70 mudlarksinvolved, and normally our
personal collections, becausewe're allowed to keep pretty
much everything we find on theriverbed, a lot of mudlarks have

(22:37):
very extensive largecollections, which are
unfortunately stored under ourbeds on top of cupboards, uh
just collecting dust.
So we get to dust it all offonce a year and kind of take it
on a road trip around London.
So this year we're starting umat Waterman's Hall, which is the
home of the Thames Watermen andLycwomen, uh, which used to

(23:00):
live and work along the river.
And some of these people stilldrive the Uber boats or the um
the Thames Clippers, which stillgo up and down the river.
Uh so we start there andexhibit some of our finds in
that ancient hall.
And then we take everythingover to the National Maritime
Museum, so over in Greenwich,which is very historic, and
we're focusing specifically onTudor and Maritime London

(23:23):
because there's so much Tudorhistory in that area.
Uh, King Henry VIII, uh,Elizabeth I, uh, Queen Mary,
they were all born in thatpalace that's uh now been
destroyed and built over.
But some of the artifacts thatwe find there on the Greenwich
foreshore are actually from thatoriginal palace, the Palace of
Placentia.
Uh, so it's such a beautifularea that's steeped in history.

(23:46):
So to be able to display someof our Tudor artifacts and some
of our maritime uh artifacts isjust absolutely a stunning
setting for that.
And then we move everything toSt.
Paul's Cathedral, so in centralLondon.
So that was pretty much theheart of where the old city was
destroyed back in the Great Fireof 1666.
And then the St.
Paul's Cathedral was rebuilt inthe 17th century by Sir

(24:09):
Christopher Wren.
Uh, so we're actuallyexhibiting and displaying some
of our artifacts in the oldmedieval part that was untouched
by the fire, which is down inthe crypt area.
So, again, such a beautifulhistoric venue.
Then the following week, thelast week of September, we're
exhibiting over in the Romanamphitheater.
And most people don't knowthis, but London used to have

(24:32):
its own amphitheater back inRoman times, built in around the
second century AD.
And it was discovered back inthe 1980s when they were doing
some excavation work uh for theGuildhall Art Gallery.
And uh, so they've excavatedit, and you can actually walk
into the arena where thegladiators used to battle and uh

(24:53):
fight wild animals.
So to be able to display someof our Roman artifacts in such a
historic venue uh and justbring the history to life.
I mean, a lot of times you andI don't have access to these
historic artifacts, but thebeauty of these exhibitions is
that everything is on displayand you're allowed to hold the
artifacts and just feel theweight of history.

That is cool.
I recently interviewed SimonBourne of Psy Finds, and he is
actually in your book, and hetalks about um the Nathaniel
Posner dog tag, which he talkedabout in my episode, which I
thought was really cool.
I started reading it.
I was like, I know about that.
Simon actually told me aboutthat.

(25:33):
So you do you do highlight thefinds of other mudlarks?
That's the other thing I loveabout the book and the
community, you know, thatthey're willing to showcase what
they found.

Yeah, absolutely.
Uh, and I haven't really toldtoo many people yet.
Uh, I'll make an officialannouncement some other time,
but I'm working on the nextbook.
Oh, yeah.
And it features it featuresover 30 portraits of different
mudlarks that are currentlyactive and tells their personal
stories and shows some of theirbest finds.

Oh, I just got the chills.
I love it.
I can't wait to get it and readit.

So it introduces you to like sci finds, so Simon
Bourne, Nick White, who you saidyou're also trying to
interview, uh, she's in thebook.
So it's just bringing thesepeople's personal stories to
life.
And we can't go back in timeand meet the people that dropped
the artifacts in the Thames,but we can go meet the people
that found those artifacts.
And it's quite amazing becausesome of these finds, they've

(26:32):
literally changed people'slives.
And one of my favorite storiesthat's at the front of the book,
I shouldn't give too much away,is uh Tobias Neto, who I think
you might have heard, uh, founda Victoria Cross Medal.
And he found that uh VictoriaCross Medal in the Thames that
literally uh changed his life.
That was a life-defining momentfor him.

(26:52):
And it meant so much to himthat he's actually had it
tattooed on his arm.

Wow.

Uh-huh the image of the Victoria Cross Medal.
So I just love those pieces ofhistory.
Like I said, you can't go backin time, but you can meet the
people now and understand howthose objects are still uh on a
journey.
We're just uh custodians ofthese objects that we find.
So we're gonna give that on tothe next generation.
I'm gonna give my collection tomy children, and my son is an

(27:19):
active mudlark.
And so we just kind of givethis on to the next generation.
So it's generational.

Yeah, finding the next generation that's
interested.
So when I came to London thelast time my daughter met us in
London, she's 37.
And um, I was like, we're gonnago see history together and do
all these things.
And now she's into she was intothe nightlife.
And I was like, I don't knowwhat I was expecting.

(27:47):
She's not into it, but I'm sothrilled that my great nephew
Finley, who helped me tointerview Simon, is he's so into
this.
He loves metal detecting, heloves looking for arrowheads and
all those things.
So I think he is my nextgeneration.
You know, they gotta beinterested in it, right?

(28:08):
So are your kids are interestedin it?
Your son is.

Yeah.
Uh so my daughter, uh, she's alittle bit older now, she's 14,
so she's less interested.
Uh, she used to love going andhunting for garnets.
I think you've probably heardabout the garnets that we find
in the Thames.
So she's had beautiful piecesof jewelry made with the garnets
that she's found.
Uh, she had a beautiful ringmade and also a lovely pendant

(28:32):
uh that was actually made by auh jewelry designer in Texas.
Uh, he saw one of my posts onInstagram and uh asked me to
send him some garnets and thenmade me a lovely pendant uh
using my daughter's garnets.
So my daughter used to lovegoing garnet hunting or
searching for them.
Um my son, he loves thehistory, especially around the

(28:53):
the tutor time.
Uh, one of his favorite findsis a coin from King Henry VIII.

Wow.

Uh so to find something that you've just
learned about in history the daybefore in class and to hold
something that's 500 years oldis just mind-boggling.
And uh when we got home, uhoriginally we couldn't tell what
kind of coin it was because itwas fully corroded and uh not
corroded, but encrusted.
Yeah.
So I had to release thatincrustation using electrolysis

(29:21):
at home.
And then it came up uh as shinyas new, and we could make out
the bus of King Henry VIII.
But then when I looked in thebook, uh Spink's book, to find
out like what exact coin it was,it said it wasn't actually from
King Henry VIII, it's actuallyfrom his son.
So his son became king shortlyafter Henry VIII's death, but he

(29:44):
was so young he didn't lastthat long.
So he became king when he wasage nine.
And because he was such a youngking, uh nobody trusted the
money with his face on it.
So in order to get away aroundthat and just kind of um Get
some respect.
He used his father's face onthe coin, even though it was his

(30:05):
coinage.
So it says Edward on it, butit's actually got his father's
face on it.
Oh, that's interesting.
And my son was nine years oldwhen he actually found the coin.
And the the boy who became kingthat was made in his first year
when he was nine years old.
So a nine-year-old king, hiscoin was found by my
nine-year-old son.

(30:25):
So that was one of the bestthings.

And like with the clay pipes, I found a
couple clay pipes.
It's like somebody put itthrough it in the Thames for me
to find.
And that was that's like atangible connection in a way
that, you know, even thoughthey're not here today, it's
still connecting, and even ifyou don't know who it was, it
still, you know, fosters theimagination.

(30:58):
And I don't know.
I really like that.
I think that connection tohistory, everything that
happened before to bring us heretoday, all the narrow misses of
our ancestors, like all thosethings.
It just, if you if you're notnaw that I can't relate to you.

Yeah.

No, that's extreme.
I don't that's not true.

But yeah, in terms terms of my own personal story,
so my ancestors sailed over fromEngland back in 1638, so 18
years after the Mayflowersailed.
And they started off, theystarted their journey from
Southwold, uh, which is up inNorfolk, so on the east coast of
England, and sailed first toConnecticut, where you said you

(31:44):
used to live.
So they were in the New Havencolony for one year, didn't like
it in New Haven, and decided tomove right across the bay over
to Long Island.
And that's where with 13 otherfam, sorry, 12 other families,
so 13 in total, they startedtheir own colony, uh, which is
called the Southhold Colony,which is named after the place

(32:04):
that they started in Englandback in 1638.
So in 1640 is when they startedthat colony.
And so my my uh ancestors wereoriginal colonists, and we don't
have any heirlooms from thattime period.
So when I find something fromlike the 1630s or early 1640s, I
just know that they would havehad those types of coins in

(32:26):
their pockets or they would havebeen smoking those same clay
pipes.
Uh so it just kind of, yeah, itgives me the goosebumps as
well, just knowing that myancestors used to have that in
their pockets.

Yeah, that's interesting.
So my people came over fromEngland.
I found out after my fatherpassed because he was pure Irish
in his mind, but it turned outthat his grandfather was pure
English.
And um, that's really when Ibecame fascinated with England
because I was doing thatgenealogical research.

(32:58):
And so um there was a part ofmy family, not direct ancestors,
that broke off and they wentover to the same area,
Connecticut, New Haven.
The last name was Bud, and umI've connected our trees, but
then my people came overactually to Canada from

(33:20):
Hampshire.
They were basically inHampshire, and there was a thing
called the Petworth scheme.
I don't know if you've everheard of it, but basically it
was for all the uh agriculturalworkers that were rebellious and
out of work because technologywas changing.
So those were my people.
And um, what happened is uhthey basically supported people

(33:45):
to go over to Canada, they gavethem some land and they cleared
away the land and they had theywere able to start off new
there.
And so uh most of my familycame over in the 1800s to Canada
and then moved down into theUnited States.
But when I uh and I say allthis because when I went there
in 2013 and lived in London, Idid a lot of traveling to the

(34:10):
areas that I had traced myfamily to.
And you know, maybe it's justmy imagination, but I really
connected to some of the areasin Hampshire, like uh me and
Stoke was a little town.
I don't know if you've everheard of it, uh, close to
Winchester, but there was justthis feeling of connection that

(34:33):
I have never had anywhere else.
And I really just and thatreally kind of fostered my love
of the UK, and there's so manymore areas I'd love to go to
there, but um, the countryside,everything about it just really
spoke to me, and um yeah, sothat kind of has fed my desire

(34:57):
to find artifacts in the Thameslike you, and imagine, oh, this
is what my ancestors were up to,this is what they were doing,
this is what they were wearing,and that type of thing.
So uh, but I do digress.

No, that's what I think uh it just makes it so
relevant to us.
And I'm the first generation toactually move back to the UK.
So after uh almost 400 years,I'm the first one to move back
now uh from my family side, frommy mother's side.
So that was quite exciting.
For over 200 years, they neverleft the island.

(35:33):
Uh they they obviouslytraveled, but uh the people
didn't move off the island.
And it was my uh grandfather'sgeneration uh that was one of
the first ones.
Obviously, people before thatmoved off, but he moved to
upstate New York, which isn'ttoo far from Long Island.
And then my mom's generation,they moved to California, to

(35:54):
Chicago, Virginia, um, andPennsylvania.
So they kind of scattered a bitfurther afield than my my
generation.
My brother moved to France andI've moved to England.
Uh so we've really kind ofimmigrated back to Europe that's
great in just threegenerations.

So was how was the the move?
Like, was there culture shockor did you just easily kind of
step into living in England?

Uh so I originally was living in Germany before I
moved to England, and that wasmuch more of a culture shock,
obviously, just because of thelanguage.
In Britain, it felt like I wascoming home after having lived
in Germany for eight years.
Uh Britain felt like, oh, thisis very much like America, um,
similar language.
Um I'm still learning the thecorrect words at different

(36:48):
times, like uh pants here meansyour underwear.
Whereas uh I guess I didn'tknow they they say trousers.
So I used to say, yeah, oh, Igot my pants dirty, which means
I soiled my underwear, uh, whichuh I was always a little bit
embarrassed when I found outthat oops, I should say trousers

(37:09):
and not pants.

So well, it takes a lot of courage to do
that to up kind of root yourselfand go to another country.
My fantasy would be to live inLondon for three months out of
the year and travel out fromthere, but I haven't figured
that one out yet.
So, where do we see thishistory in pop culture?

Yeah, in terms of pol pop culture, though, I think
that because of social media,really people like yourselves,
people abroad are really hearingabout this unique phenomenon
that's happening in London.
So mud liking doesn't occur inmany cities just because you
don't have the right conditions.
So London is unusual because atide fluctuates about seven to

(37:52):
ten meters twice a day, which isthe height of a two-story
building.
So if you go to Paris, theSeine, the River Seine, doesn't
go up and down at all unlessthere's like a drought.
In Berlin, the river Spraydoesn't go up and down at all.
It's not a tidal river.
So all of those treasures thathave been lost along the river
in both Paris and Berlin are notuh able to be found.

(38:16):
I used to live in New York Cityalong the Hudson River, and
that also just fluctuates notthat much uh in terms of the
height of the water.
It doesn't really reveal theriverbed at low tide.
It still is relativelyconstant.
It does go up and down andfluctuate, but it doesn't really
expose a lot of the riverbed.
So mudlurking, as far as I'maware, is not such a big

(38:38):
phenomenon in New York Citybecause you don't have the
conditions for finding artifactson the exposed riverbed of the
East River or of the Hudson.
Whereas in London, because theriverbed at low tide becomes the
longest and largestarchaeological site, that's why
we're able to go searching andhunting.
And in terms of pop culture,it's really only because of

(39:00):
social media that people abroadhave found out about mudlarking.
It's become much more popular.
And like yourself, you sayyou're you're coming to London
specifically to go mudlarking.
That is just a recentphenomenon that's only started
in the last 10, 15 years.

I wonder if they're gonna have to start even
regulating that.

Yeah, it has grown exponentially.
I I got all the statistics fromthe the Port of London
Authority just this year, and uhthe number of permits has gone
up uh over double within thelast uh four years.
So I think just because ofsocial media, a lot of people
these days are known kind ofinternationally, the mudlarks

(39:40):
are, uh, similar to myself, andthat's why there's kind of a
general interest from around theworld.
And it's it's very rare, as Iwas mentioning earlier, that you
can find historical artifactsand be able to keep them.
It really is a Britishphenomenon.
If you were living in Turkeyand you found an ancient
artifact, uh you could bearrested if you would take that
home and not report it.

(40:01):
So we're very lucky here inBritain to be able to, um, after
we report things, to be able tokeep them.
Um so, like I mentioned, manybutlocks have thousands of
artifacts within theircollections.
So that's why I think it'sbecome a pop phenomenon at the
moment, is just because a lot ofpeople worldwide would love to
have that opportunity in theirown backyard, similar to what we

(40:22):
have here in London.

Yeah, that's true.
So I'm always trying to figureout places to go metal
detecting.
And I live in a NationalHistoric Landmark District in
Colorado.
And so I do mud, I guess it'smudlarking, because I find all
kinds of stuff in the mud aroundhere that are from the mining
period, the 1800s.

(40:45):
Yeah, so that it's I'm alwayslooking for a place to go and
find treasure and history andthat type of thing, but there
aren't as many options, like yousay, is what the the Thames
affords.
So what's the most valuablething you've ever found?

Uh so I actually don't really know because I
never have anything valued.
Uh sometimes I do check onlineif if I know it's uh something
that's either very rare or uhpotentially historically
important, but I've never hadanything properly valued, so I'm
not sure exactly what the valueof individual items are.
But uh one of the most unusualcoins that I've ever found,

(41:27):
which I know is worth a fewthousand, is uh a coin that was
made in the 17th century.
It's made out of pewter and wasonly in circulation for two
weeks.
And because it was only incirculation for such a short
period of time, it's worth a lotof money because they didn't
produce that many of them.
And most of them were melteddown and made into other coins

(41:47):
or other objects because themetal was quite precious back
then.
Pewter was not something that,yeah, every man had.

So, what made you write the book?

Uh, so the reason why I wrote the book is just to
really tell the whole story ofLondon through the artifacts
that we found in the river.
So other books have beenwritten before, but it's about
people's personal collections.
And this book uh was the firsttime that uh someone has written
about the wider community'scollection.
Um, so not focused on my ownpersonal finds or Nick's

(42:21):
personal finds.
It was kind of like a groupeffort to bring the book
together.
So that was the main reason isa lot of the fantastic artifacts
that have been found uh aren'treally known to the general
public.
We know them as mudlarksbecause we've studied and done a
lot of research, but uh ithadn't been pulled together as
kind of a an as a one source.

(42:42):
The Museum of London has done afantastic job with researching
a lot of the different artifactsor collections.
So, for instance, they uhacquired a collection of pewter
toys from medieval times topost-medieval times.
Those were all donated oracquired from a mudlark called
Tony Pilsen, who's unfortunatelypassed away.

(43:03):
But they came out with a greatvolume, a catalog, just with all
of the different types of toysthat have been found in the
Thames.
So they do things like pilgrimbadges, they focus on pewter
toys, as I just mentioned, andother like dress accessories,
but it doesn't cover everything.
So from the Roman times all theway to modern day times.

(43:24):
So that's what we're trying toestablish in the book, is just
to kind of bring everythingtogether and also keep it
concise and short andinexpensive so everyone can buy
it.
It's it's not gonna break yourbank to buy this book.
It's it's less than 10 pounds.

Is there anything that I didn't ask you
that you wanted to share with myaudience?

Uh yeah, the one thing that I would love to share
is we're not only doing theexhibitions uh every September,
but our end game is to open ourown museum.
Uh a lot of the artifacts thatare on display in museums today,
again, they kind of show thesilver, the gold, the very
precious things that peopleowned.

(44:04):
And it wasn't just normalpeople, it was always like the
wealthy aristocrats, uh, theroyals, the monarchs, the the
richest people of society.
But it's very uh uncommon tosee just the ordinary objects
like a button, a humble button,and how that can tell the story
about one person who lived inLondon 200 years ago.

(44:25):
So, what we want to do is bringall the ordinary objects in,
like the bone toothbrushes thatwere used in Victorian times, or
the Tudor combs that were usedto comb out the knits.
So, everyday personal objects,not the kind of gold and silver
rings, I'm sure we'll have someof those as well.
But we just want to tell thestory of ordinary people

(44:45):
throughout the 2,000 years ofhistory along the River Thames.
So the story of London, again,through the artifacts that we
found.
And the book was just the startof that.
So the book is kind of aprinted form of what we'd love
to do in the museum itself.

Is there like something in the works for the
museum, or is it just like avision right now?

So uh I'm an architect myself and I've been
working on the project forseveral years.
We've uh been to the Houses ofParliament, we've been to the
mayor's office, uh, we've beento many different people around
London meeting them, talkingabout the project.
And we've also been meetingwith exhibition designers,
getting their proposals andideas, and we've been also

(45:27):
working with developers andtrying to find a suitable
location along the Thames.
Uh, it should be along theriver, and that's why it's taken
a bit longer than we had hoped,uh, just because obviously
that's prime real estate.
So we've got a very good leadat the moment, and we're just
waiting for the planningpermission to be granted, and
then hopefully we're able tomake an announcement at some
point.
But uh the other part of themuseum, which is one of the uh

(45:50):
more unusual things, is wereally want to make the museum
experience kind of evolve arounduh school kids, anyone that's
interested, actually going on aguided tour of the foreshore
themselves.
So normally when you go to amuseum, everything's behind a
glass counter, a glass box, or aglass wall.
We want to remove the glass andallow people to find things for

(46:13):
themselves.
And as you know from your ownexperience, going down on the
river, you always find somethinginteresting.
Like my son, when he firststarted going, and I see many
kids do this, they found a cow'stooth, and they're huge, but
just that in itself, it has nokind of uh worth as such, but it
just kind of piques yourinterest and gets you interested

(46:33):
about uh London's history andand where did that tooth come
from and who had that cow fordinner, or was that used to make
a leather shoe or uh anotherbyproduct?
So all of these small things,whether it's a rock, a stone, a
clay pipe, a clay pipe bowl, oruh pipe stem or a broken bit of
pottery, all of that just uhunlocks a new story about

(46:57):
London's past.
And that's what we want tobring to the museum is allow you
to discover history foryourself, not just have it kind
of fed to you through thedisplays within the museum.

Yeah, I think that makes a huge difference.
When I was in York, we went tothe uh Yorkshire Museum.

Yeah.

And they had areas where you could actually
touch some of the artifacts, theold coins, and that type of
thing.
Um, and then the Viking, theViking Museum they have there,
which is funky.
Yeah, and the museum part, likeyou could touch different
things, and it just it it makesa huge difference.
You're right.

(47:35):
So, how is that going to befunded, just out of curiosity?

So we're looking for grants from the Heritage
Lottery Fund.
And there's a lot of differentother sources that we've been
looking into, and we've beenspeaking with uh various
charities.
We're ourselves a registeredcharity now in the UK.
So we are actively looking forsponsors.
Uh, but again, these projectsthey don't happen overnight

(48:00):
unless you have a huge grantfrom a private individual.
Um, it takes many years.
And obviously, with COVID justhaving passed through the
pandemic, a lot of the fundinghas dried up just because a lot
of uh sources are propping upcurrent museums because they
haven't had an income over thepast two years.
So a lot of that's just beenkind of diverted over to not new

(48:22):
projects, but to existingprojects just to make sure that
they don't um yeah, go under.

That's interesting.
So, what's the name of yourorganization?

It's called Thames Museum.
That's the name of the museum,and you can find us at
thamesmuseum.org.
So if you go online, it'swww.temsmuseum, that's one word
dot org.

Okay, and I'll definitely link out to to
that, to your social media, todo you have a website?

I don't personally, but um I post a lot of things
on the yeah.

Okay, and I definitely recommend the book,
whether you're a mudlark or not,because the history is
fascinating.
The stories that are toldthrough the artifacts is
amazing.
Um, so definitely what's thename of the book again, one more
time?

Thames Mudlarking Searching for London's lost
treasures.

Okay, and was there anything else?

I think we've pretty much covered everything.

Yeah, I think so too.

Uh just one one thing is kind of unrelated, but
uh you mentioned Simon.
Uh we were commissioned by thehistoric royal palaces to go
searching in the moat around theTower of London Castle this
year.
The Society of Thames Mudlarkshas established a really good
working relationship with theMuseum of London over the years,

(49:48):
and they have used mudlarks ondifferent sites along the river
for decades now.
Because we're skilled metaldetectorists, they use us to uh
comb sites that are currentlybeing excavated.
So if new developments arebeing built along the river and
they're digging down, they wantto make sure that they find
everything.
And archaeologists they do afantastic job uh looking and

(50:11):
finding things by sight.
But uh, as a metal detectorist,we find everything that's
metallic on the site thatsometimes can be overlooked
because uh it is a very blackmud that we're searching
through.
So uh late last year, we wereinvited by the historic royal
palaces uh to metal detectwithin the uh moat of the Tower

(50:32):
of London Castle, which is rightalong the river uh in central
London.
It's one of the most uhhistoric sites in London and
it's a world uh UNESCO WorldHeritage Site.
So it's absolutely uh I was Iwas just blown away by the
opportunity to go down and lookfor lost artifacts in the moat.
Uh so the first day it was justtwo mudlarks and the Museum of

(50:55):
London.
We were the only ones, so threeof us that were actually
searching for these lostartifacts of the moat.
So Nick Stevens, the co-authorof the book, and myself, and
then Stuart White from theMuseum of London.
Uh so to be honest, I thoughtwe'd just find a lot of poll
tabs from bottles or bottlecaps, uh, a lot of modern
rubbish or garbage, trash in themoat.

(51:15):
But uh within the first hour,we started finding medieval
artifacts.
And somehow, obviously, overthe years there's
stratification, but becausethere's been different building
works within the moat over thepast 200 years, um, things have
come to the surface as they weredigging through uh different
layers.
So we were just metal detectingthe spoil that they were

(51:37):
excavating because they wereputting in a new drainage system
within the moat to irrigate anew project, which is called the
Superbloom Project, which was akind of commemorative flower
garden for Queen Elizabeth II'suh platinum jubilee, which
happened in June.
So that's why they uh asked usto volunteer.
So I volunteered over threedifferent days, uh, took three

(51:58):
days off of work to go down andsearch for pretty much eight to
ten hours and just find anythingthat we could salvage from the
old moat.
What an absolutely crackingopportunity to actually uh
discover London's history in asite that's not on the river.
It was actually a field, it's agrassy kind of field now within
the moat.

(52:19):
But we did find Tudorartifacts, we found medieval
artifacts, uh, a lot ofVictorian things.
And one of the key things thatthe Museum of London, also
Historic Royal Palace, has said,is that we have found a large
cross section of the Tower ofLondon's history.
But the one thing that theydidn't know is how many

(52:40):
different people use the moatfor their training grounds.
So soldiers used to come andtrain at the Tower of London,
and they would even camp withinthe moat itself.
And they have no record of allof the different people and
different soldiers and differentregiments that have been in the
moat.
But as we were finding theirbuttons, the buttons that they

(53:00):
left behind have their insigniaand their names.
So for instance, the LovettScouts, they were uh in the
moat.
And previously it was unknownthat they were in the moat uh
practicing or training.
So we found a lot of bulletsand ammunition along with their
badges, their cap badges, theirbuttons off their uh uniforms.

(53:21):
And so that was quitefascinating just to find long
lost history, and it now servesas a good record of who actually
was using the moat from prettymuch Victorian times up until
present day, after the moat wasinfilled back, and I think it
was around 1835 when the waterwas drained.

That was going to be my next question.
When did they take the waterout of it?
That's cool.
That sounds really exciting.
Anything else?

I think we literally have covered
everything now.

Yeah, I think so.
Jason Sandy, thank you so muchfor being here.
I really enjoyed talking toyou.

Thanks so much for having me.

There you have it.
Jason Sandy.
The name of the book is ThamesMudlarking, searching for
London's Lost Treasures.
To find out more about the bookand about Jason, do check out
our episode notes.
Thanks for joining us.
Have a great day.

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