Riverscape

Secrets Of The Thames exhibition showcases mudlarking treasures

London Museum Docklands’ latest major exhibitions recreates Thames foreshore and tells the stories of those who scour its beaches


A 16th century dagger goes on display at London Museum Docklands’ exhibition - image by London Museum
A 16th century dagger goes on display at London Museum Docklands’ exhibition – image by London Museum

Subscribe to our free Wharf Whispers newsletter here

The tide has washed over the space set aside for major exhibitions at London Museum Docklands and left behind it a rich haul of finds, information and art.

Unveiled this month, Secrets Of The Thames is a hymn to the capital’s longest archaeological site – the river’s foreshore – and those who prowl the edges of the water in search of its treasures.

The exhibition, which runs until March next year, is a celebration and revelation of the long-observed practice of mudlarking – raking through stretches of land that are exposed as the tides reveal London’s beaches and mudflats twice a day. 

To that end, curators have combined a vast array of finds with a recreation of the exposed riverbed, artworks and a technical window into how the museum works with the beachcombers to catalogue and preserve historic pieces rescued from the depths.

Today mudlarking is popular – it’s regulated by the Port Of London Authority, which issues 4,000 permits for enthusiasts each year.

It has suspended new applications at present due to a waiting list now exceeding 10,000. 

But while 21st century archaeologists, artists and social media producers are driven to dig in the soggy stuff for a variety of lofty motivations, those who went before were often simply scratching a living. 

The exhibition includes a recreation of the Thames foreshore for visitors to explore - image by London Museum
The exhibition includes a recreation of the Thames foreshore for visitors to explore – image by London Museum

the story in the mud

“We tell the whole story from the earliest mudlarks who were first recorded in the 18th century” said Thomas Ardill, curator of paintings, prints and drawings at London Museum.

“It was probably going on long before that too.

“These people were just searching for useful things to sell – bits of coal and steel, for example.

“They were scavengers, sometimes children, sometimes women – but as they were finding useful objects, they were also digging up historical pieces.

“This was in a period when antiquarians were starting to get interested in London’s history and mudlarks found they could sell artefacts. 

“In the exhibition we’re showcasing not just what objects were found, but also the people who found them.

“The earliest mudlarks were entrepreneurs, and they were creative and inspired by what they found.

“Some were conning the art world by creating fakes, but that also showed their creativity and ingenuity.

Thomas Ardill, curator of paintings, prints and drawings at London Museum - image by Jon Massey
Thomas Ardill, curator of paintings, prints and drawings at London Museum – image by Jon Massey

“A lot of the mudlarks today are fantastic artists and it’s an exhibition that you see through their eyes.

“It’s about the joy of  discovery as much as it is about the objects.

“About five years ago, we touched on mudlarking a bit and realised it had potential – Secrets Of The Thames has been a long time in the making.

“We’ve been working closely with Stuart Wyatt, London Museum’s finds liaison officer, whose job it is to record the finds made by mudlarks with permits.

“One of the things I really like in the exhibition is the finds desk. It reveals how we record objects and will feature rotating exhibits.

“At the moment, there’s an Italian ceramic water vessel, which is one of four or five discovered in a particular spot on the Thames over the years.

“There’s definitely something interesting going on in that location.

“Stuart thinks what might have happened is a box containing a shipment may have been broken and been dumped over the side of the ship that was carrying it.”


London Museum curator Kate Summnall - image by London Museum
London Museum curator Kate Sumnall – image by London Museum

connecting to London’s history through Secrets Of The Thames

With brightly-lit cabinets full of deeply personal items – false teeth, rings, bones and even phallic fertility symbols – it’s also a chance for Londoners to get a sense of the city’s former inhabitants.

“We are lucky in London to have this amazing tidal river environment that has preserved so much of our past,” said London Museum curator Kate Sumnall.

“It is the longest archaeological site in the capital and here we find an unbelievably rich selection of finds, from beautifully worked prehistoric arrowheads to a small, ivory sundial used to tell the time.

“Thanks to the dedication and expertise of today’s mudlarks, we are constantly uncovering new objects that inform our understanding of history. 

“Above all this exhibition is an exploration of love and desire, faith and loss, migration, community and culture – the stories of generations of people who have visited the city or called it home.”

With many mudlarks using their finds to create art, the museum has chosen to embrace their creativity and showcase their talents as part of the exhibition.

Printmaker, sculptor and artist Amy-Leigh Bird - image by Jon Massey
Printmaker, sculptor and artist Amy-Leigh Bird – image by Jon Massey

a mudlark’s tale

Amy-Leigh Bird is a printmaker, sculptor and artist who regularly scours the foreshore in search of inspiration and materials.

One of her pieces is included in Secrets Of The Thames.

She said: “I started mudlarking as a kid, inspired by going to see an exhibition by artist Richard Long at Tate Britain.

“There was a beautiful piece he’d made out of red bricks and so I went down onto the foreshore with my dad and made my own little piece there – that was my first work.

“Then I went to university and started collecting in the rivers in Glasgow, collecting ceramic and glass objects. I also found a gun.

“When I came to London, it just seemed instinctive to go mudlarking.

“At first I was just aimlessly collecting – stuff I was interested in, but that did include bones and teeth, and this grew more into my practice.

“Other mudlarks were looking for coins, pins, garnets and cameos – which are all beautiful and exciting – but I like objects that are uglier.

“We’re all made of bones and teeth come from the mouths of living, sentient beings.

“Animal bones and teeth in the river might have come from meat markets that would feed the people of that time.

“They link back to us, which is really beautiful.

“Coming from a small town, I find that London can be an assault on the senses – it’s relentless.

“When you go mudlarking, there is this wonderful moment, highlighted in the exhibition, when you leave the chaos and noise behind.

“Once you’re on the foreshore, the sounds are different.

“It’s the the waves lapping, the gravel beneath your feet. I end up being there for hours and the time just flies.

Amy-Leigh Bird's Ancient Ruins 2020 - image by Jon Massey
Amy-Leigh Bird’s Ancient Ruins 2020 – image by Jon Massey

“Finding something feels euphoric. It’s personal, it’s mine. I lost a lot of my childhood toys in a house move, which was sad.

“So when I find something mudlarking it’s a sign to me that the object has in some way chosen me, which is a beautiful experience.

“My favourite object in the exhibition is a neolithic bone.

“It’s such a simple object but it’s made me wonder how many of the bones I’ve picked up for my collection are neolithic.

“I originally started making work by finding things and making prints out of them.

“I’d put bones, clay pipes and things together, photograph them and then translate that image into a photo-polymer etching.

“In lockdown, when I couldn’t go out or mudlark, I was stuck at home with a big box of bones and started to think of how I could create work differently.

“That was a shift in my work as an artist, to go from 2D work to sculpture.”

Amy-Leigh’s piece, Ancient Ruins, 2020, is included in Secrets Of The Thames.

Mudlark Alessio Checconi explores the Thames foreshore at low tide in search of treasures washed up by the ever-churning waters - image by John Chase / London Museum
Mudlark Alessio Checconi explores the Thames foreshore at low tide in search of treasures washed up by the ever-churning waters – image by John Chase / London Museum

key details: Secrets Of The Thames

Secrets Of The Thames will be at London Museum Docklands until March 1, 2026 and is accessible during normal opening hours.

Tickets are cheaper if booked online in advance and start at £16 for adults.

Find out more about the exhibition here

Read more: How Orbit Clipper is set to become the first all-electric ferry on the Thames

Read Wharf Life’s e-edition here

Subscribe to our free Wharf Whispers newsletter here

Subscribe To Wharf Life

Leamouth: How the SS Robin has returned to within 150m of her London birthplace

Historic ship’s move is the start of the latest chapter as Trinity Buoy Wharf prepares her for opening

The SS Robin, moored at her new home at Trinity Buoy Wharf – image Harry Dwyer

Subscribe to our free Wharf Whispers newsletter here

So there she sits, resplendent in her red and black livery, atop a specially constructed pontoon and ready for the next chapter of her life.

The SS Robin has, after some 133 years, returned to within 150m of the shipyard where the iron plates of her hull were first riveted together. 

She might be smaller in size than the Cutty Sark and HMS Belfast – but make no mistake – as historic ships in London go, she’s deserving of attention.

And following her most recent relocation from Royal Victoria Dock to Trinity Buoy Wharf, the story of the only surviving Victorian steam ship in existence is a big step closer to getting appropriate prominence.

It’s a move that’s been a long time coming.

Having spent a chunk of her retirement (1991-2008) at West India Quay opposite Canary Wharf, the Crossrail project saw her moved to Suffolk, with funding secured for restoration.

That saw her lifted from the water and mounted on a pontoon in 2010, with the intention of returning her to Docklands for public exhibition. 

But plans to open her as a museum ship in Royal Victoria Dock faltered so, while she has been moored near Millennium Mills since 2011, she’s remained mostly closed to the public and inaccessible. 

Nearly there – passing the cable car over the Thames – image Simon Richards

Schemes were mooted, plans made and locations suggested, but in more than a decade, Robin failed to find a permanent home.

A site was not forthcoming in either the Royals or West India Docks, amid the ironically choppy administrative waters of the bodies managing these vast human-made lakes. 

Eric Reynolds is founding director of Urban Space Management, which runs Trinity Buoy Wharf.

He is a man who makes things happen. London is strewn with projects he’s had a hand in – Camden Lock Market, Gabriel’s Wharf on the South Bank, Greenwich Market and Merton Abbey Mills, to name a few.

After becoming involved with the SS Robin and growing frustration at the failure to open her to the public as promised, he’s now overseen the relocation of the vessel to the mouth of the River Lea, where she will have a permanent home among the growing historic fleet at Trinity Buoy Wharf.

“The original intention was to keep going with the project and leave Robin where she was in Royal Docks,” said Eric.

“But eventually I gave up – I just couldn’t get any of the organisations to get off the fence.

“So instead we turned to the Port Of London Authority to get a licence to drive two piles into the riverbed at Trinity Buoy Wharf.

Heading through the Thames Barrier on her way to Trinity Buoy Wharf – image Simon Richards

“The ship and her pontoon probably have a combined weight of about 600tonnes, which is not something I’d want to moor directly against the listed river wall as it would pose some risk.

“So, instead, it’s held between two giant ‘knitting needles’, which weigh 17 tonnes each. There’s a seven-metre rise and fall of the tide, so Robin will demonstrate that every day.”

That change in level also presents the last significant stumbling block to opening the vessel to the public.

A 40m gangway is set to be installed over the next couple of months that will go up and down with the level of the water, providing access at a suitable gradient.

Then, members of the public will be able to tour the vessel and view a wealth of information about her past and why she’s been preserved in this way.

“The driving idea is to make that information and Robin herself available to people who live here and know the area, as well as newcomers to it,” said Eric.

“There’s a population the size of Swindon scheduled to move in – a whole new town is being created.

“Shipping is still the major way by which the world trades with itself and London is here because it was driven by this tidal river and the trade that took place on it.

“Robin is the very last complete trading vessel of the period in the world with its original method of propulsion still in place.

“She was sold reasonably early in her life to the Spanish who operated her on a bit of a shoestring, so they didn’t do what nearly everyone else did, which was to take out the steam engine and put in an easily operated diesel.

“When you look at the ship and see the small size of the rudder and the huge propeller, you realise she’s relying on torque rather than revs.

Urban Space Management’s Eric Reynolds – image Jon Massey

“I really take my hat off to her crew – operating her in a crowded dock. With modern vessels you have bow thrusters and they can turn on a sixpence whatever the weather.

“With Robin you’d have had to spend 12 hours just getting steam up – their lives were so hard. We have a lot of material about her working life so we’ll be able to tell people all about it – the crew on her maiden voyage, for example. 

“What we won’t do is commercialise her in any way – the whole point about this ship is she looks and feels like one that would carry coals from Newcastle and salted herring from Aberdeen.

“That should be respected and the entire idea is to create a free access open museum, along the lines of Blists Hill in Shropshire, where people can come to learn.”

Trinity Buoy Wharf plans to work with a cross section of organisations including schools, artists and musicians to explore and illuminate the vessel’s heritage as a jumping off point for study, not least in the fields of science and technology.

It also intends to tell the story of the ship’s construction at the yard of Mackenzie, MacAlpine And Company in Blackwall.

“That’s really quite amazing,” said Eric.

“With health and safety now, we could never imagine a 14-year-old boy throwing lumps of red hot metal up for someone else to catch in a shovel.

“The majority of the ship is original, and when we cut some of the metal and sent it away, the people said that you couldn’t get iron like this any more.

“It was probably made by some process that you wouldn’t be allowed to do now.

“For young people it’s a window into a lost world – an educational asset rather than a tourist attraction.”

In time, Trinity Buoy Wharf plans to bring all the historic vessels in its collection together with row barge Diana and the tugs Knocker White and Suncrest connected to the SS Robin, so visitors can tour all of them.

Watch this space for an opening date for the historic vessel.

Find out more about the SS Robin at Trinity Buoy Wharf here

Read more: How Canary Wharf’s Creative Virtual is taming the voice of AI

Read Wharf Life’s e-edition here

Subscribe to our free Wharf Whispers newsletter here

- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com
Subscribe To Wharf Life

Leamouth: How Uber Boat By Thames Clippers is cutting emissions of the river

CEO Sean Collins on the launch of hybrid vessel Earth Clipper and forthcoming cross-river services

Uber Boat By Thames Clippers CEO Sean Collins

Subscribe to our free Wharf Whispers newsletter here

The passenger craft Sean Collins has been running on London’s great river have always had a futuristic edge to them.

Starting with three Hydrocats in 1999 – each able to carry 62 people from Greenland Pier in Rotherhithe into the City – the zippy little twin-hulled craft helped carve out an image of Docklands’ modernisation that boosted the area’s ongoing regeneration.

As Canary Wharf, east and south-east London have grown and developed – so too has the river bus service, now based at Trinity Buoy Wharf.

Today, the vessels in Uber Boat By Thames Clippers’ fleet are larger – long slender craft that hug the water as their engines blast them rapidly along. 

While to the untrained eye, the sleek lines of the 220-passenger vessels might appear similar, don’t be fooled.

There’s change afoot – a journey that started with the arrival of Venus Clipper in 2019 as the service targeted green improvement. 

The next step on that path, somewhat delayed by the pandemic, was the recent launch of Earth Clipper – a vessel that is aesthetically similar to the rest of the fleet, but is also completely different.

Earth Clipper runs purely on battery power in central London

Firstly, at 40 metres long, she can carry an extra 10 passengers. 

But this is a mere tweak in comparison to the main difference – the way she is propelled. Earth Clipper uses a hybrid combination of electric power and biofuel power to slice through the brown waters of the Thames.

In central London, she uses only an electric motor with a biofuel engine kicking in out east to recharge her batteries and push water through her jets.

“Earth Clipper has been just under three years in the making.

“We started working on the specification in 2019,” said Sean, CEO of Uber Boat By Thames Clippers.

“We needed extra capacity, to be able to serve our routes with the expansion down to Barking – the increasing volumes that were there and those in the pipeline, such as Battersea.

“We’d just commissioned their predecessor – Venus Clipper – and we were already focused on reducing weight and therefore power in that vessel.

“That was already a 20% emissions improvement on the core boats in our fleet for the same carrying capacity.

The boat is similar to other vessels in the fleet but produces 90% less CO2 emissions

“With that one, we were asking how we could make the boat lighter while providing an enhanced level of comfort and all the facilities our passengers expected.

“We worked on that whole design with 123 Naval Architects and came up with Venus.

“From that, we decided we had to move it on to the next level.”

The drive to do that came from the company’s goal to cut carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and to achieve net zero for the overall business by 2040.

Sean said: “Boats have to last 25-30 years – they haven’t got a similar shelf life to most other above ground vehicles. 

“With that in mind, to reach our sustainability goals, we realised we had to have a significant step forward.

“We looked at the options, took a lot of data from the operating profile of Venus and used it to establish what might be achieved by using a hybrid model. 

“From that, we realised we were not going to be able to achieve 100% battery power at high speeds, but that we could when going more slowly, as we do in central London.

“We formulated a specification and went to the shipyard that had built our previous five vessels and signed contracts to move on with building Earth Clipper.

She has a biofuel engine that charges her batteries and provides power outside the centre of London

“It does exactly what we wanted it to do.

“The model has resulted in a 90% reduction in our CO2 emissions and a 65% drop in oxides of nitrogen and sulphur.

“Those are figures based on measurements we’ve taken during actual running on the Thames.

“There are two more in build – Celestial and Mars – which will both have joined the fleet by spring 2024.

“We all have a duty of care and a duty to deliver on improving the environment.”

There are other benefits too.

Earth and its two sister ships hail from the Wight Shipyard Co on at East Cowes on the Isle Of Wight – a boost to the local economy with 65 people involved in their construction, including 14 apprentices. 

There are also other operational benefits closer to home – welcome news as passenger numbers are already exceeding levels seen in 2019.

“Earth is significantly quieter and smoother on battery and that’s even the case when the engine is running,” said Sean.

“From a noise perspective, it’s a significant improvement and there’s absolutely no compromise at all from the customer’s point of view.

“The seating is also an upgrade in design – we’ve managed to make all 230 lighter, improving the efficiency of the vessel.

“We had to add nearly nine tonnes of additional weight with cabling, batteries and the motor to enable us to use this method of powering the boat.

“So that’s a process we’ve been through with every component.

“When stepping on Earth Clipper, we feel a sense of achievement.

“We’re really inspired by feedback from the public and also the crews that are working on the boat.

“They really love it – the technical advances and the sense of having taken that step forward.”

The use of battery-only power in central London equates to an extra 16.5% reduction in emissions in comparison to using the biofuel engine alone.

In the future, Sean said hydrogen would likely provide further cuts in emissions as electrical power was currently impractical as a way to deliver high speed services on the river, given the charging times needed.

Earth Clipper can carry 10 extra passengers

A Rotherhithe – Canary Wharf Crossing

However, Uber Boat By Thames Clippers is also pressing ahead with plans for an all-electric cross-river service for pedestrians and cyclists.

The aim is to have this up and running on the company’s Rotherhithe-to-Canary Wharf route by spring 2025 and then use it as a template for similar services elsewhere.

Sean said: “We’re committed to delivering that as part of our plans to invest £70million in new boats up to 2030.

“There are also opportunities between Silvertown and Charlton as well as Thamesmead and Barking in the east.

“We’re also aiming to add more stops including a pier that has planning permission at Blackwall Yard, which the developer will hopefully build over the next few years.

“One of the things that happened over the pandemic is that more people discovered the river and we’ve had three record days this year. 

“Our figures for 2022 were higher than 2019 and Canary Wharf, for example, is thriving. The footfall at that pier is exceeding pre-Covid levels.”

Find out more about Uber Boat By Thames Clippers here

Read more: Sign up for the Santa Stair Climb at One Canada Square

Read Wharf Life’s e-edition here

Subscribe to our free Wharf Whispers newsletter here

- Jon Massey is co-founder and editorial director of Wharf Life and writes about a wide range of subjects in Canary Wharf, Docklands and east London - contact via jon.massey@wharf-life.com
Subscribe To Wharf Life