From New Brunswick to Fulham

It’s been a very busy few months since my last blog post. We’ve been away travelling in Europe, reliving our inter-railing student days but with a touch more luxury. Decent train reservations and nice hotels rather than cheap nights in dodgy Eastern European youth hostels (I’m talking early 1980s – I’m sure they’re much nicer now) or dossing in a field somewhere in Belgium. Travelling in comfort is definitely de rigueur once you get to a certain age. We visited Brussels, Cologne, Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Amsterdam. Think Michael ‘Choo Choo’ Portillo (my Overseas readers might like to google him) but without the annoying flourescent suits.

I’ve been mudlarking too, not as many visits to the foreshore this year as I’d like, though this has picked up in recent weeks. Sometimes these visits have been a bit ‘smash’n’grab’ rather than a decent three hours or so, but even a quick lark is better than nothing and I’m grateful for even an hour of searching.

There have also been our Hands on History mudlarking exhibitions. Last month I made my way to Henfield Hall in West Sussex for a wonderfully busy and well attended event, where we mudlarks were guests of the Henfield History Group. There will be more exhibitions to come, including an exciting weekend at the stunning St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, on Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st June, from 10am to 4pm, free entry. A date for your diaries – do come!

Two weekends ago, just as the current heatwave was on its way, there were some decent low tides scheduled so I took myself down to the foreshore in South West London to see what the Thames might give me.

One of the wonderful things about mudlarking is that you never know what you’ll find. I arrived two hours before the predicted low for that day and could already see the tideline much further out than expected. Clearly it was going to be a corker, though that’s no guarantee of finding anything, as all mudlarks will tell you. But it doesn’t stop you hoping and it does guarantee access to areas of foreshore that are normally invisible and inaccessible.

Strolling along the tideline I saw something bizarre and more than a little disturbing. One of my nightmares, and that of many mudlarks, is finding something grisly on the foreshore – dead animals, human remains (which must be reported to police immediately) or eerie, potentially cursed objects. A fellow mudlark told me he’d recently found artefacts related to dark practices, felt extremely unnerved by this, and sensibly left them where they were. For those who are sensitive to this kind of thing, which is probably most of us, it can be an issue. I’ve thankfully never found human remains though mudlarks have been known to find Bronze Age skulls or bones relating to 18th/19th century convicts once kept on prison hulks moored on the river. When these poor souls died it wasn’t unknown for their bodies to end up in the Thames. However, I have found dead animals, unpleasant in itself, obviously – rats, a drowned puppy, foxes caught on the foreshore as the tide turned with no means of escape and, once, a dead cat in a plastic carrier bag. There’s no way of disguising this, it can be grim, but I made myself open the bag and take a look. It turned out to be what looked like an Edwardian gent’s efforts at amateur taxidermy. Moth eaten, mangy, glass eyes, not pleasant but at least not recent. I disposed of the poor thing carefully and respectfully.

Back to the bizarre thing.

This is what I spotted as I strolled about. Staring up at me, near a bridge from where I suspect someone had once lobbed it into the river, was this head. Picking it up, I couldn’t work out who this weather-beaten, toothless, bearded face belonged to. He was also very heavy, which might explain why his head was still intact with very little damage as far as I could see. Thrown into the Thames on a high tide the river would have broken his fall while he sank slowly to the bottom. Because of the exceptional low tide that weekend in SW London he wouldn’t normally have been visible.

Kassem – Vintage Bossons Chalkware Wall Mask Plaque

I’ll admit I found him strange. The monotone colour, white face and black head covering, was dramatic and theatrical but also a bit unnerving, though that could just have been his direct gaze. Turning the head over there was a hole at the back, so clearly this had once been hung on someone’s wall. I didn’t feel any really negative ‘do not touch’ vibes from him so I decided to take him home with me and try to research who he was. However, the family weren’t pleased when I took him out of my finds bag in the kitchen and there was an overwhelming vote for me to take him back where I’d found him. My lot can be wusses.

Then the mudlarking hive mind came to my aid.

Vintage Bossons of Congleton, Cheshire, Chalkware Wall Mask Plaques

My Thames-found head was part of a collection of chalkware heads and figurines made by Bossons of Congleton, England. Bright, colourful creations, they were produced in the 1960s and were hugely collectible. When I posted about my Bossons head on another social media platform last week, a number of people messaged me to say that their parents, grandparents or some other relative had once collected these. They’re still collectible today though I have to be honest and say they’re not my taste. Maybe it’s me but there’s an odd vibe, a national stereotype to these faces, though they were from the 1960s when times and cultural attitudes were very different. Kitsch and slightly garish, Bossons produced Scotsmen, Albanians, Robin Hood, Country Squires, Nigerian gents, Arab Sheikhs, Swiss yodellers in Tyrolean hats, French onion sellers called Pierre, and plump-cheeked country milk maids. The range of Bossons heads was quite extensive.

My chap would have been once quite colourful, not the monotone he was when I saw him on the foreshore. It seems that decades immersed in the river had washed all the original paintwork away.

Having got him home and been unable to persuade the family that he definitely wasn’t cursed, I decided to take him back to the river the next day. I left him where I’d originally spotted him for someone else to find and then crossed over to the north side of the Thames to see what else might come my way.

There are times when the river takes your breath away.

This part of the foreshore in SW London has an ancient history. It literally holds secrets of some of the oldest settlements in what is now modern London. There are intertidal prehistoric peat deposits on both sides of the river here, at Putney and Fulham, when the landscape was once very different. The peat deposits contain diverse plant and animal remains giving important information on past environments and ancient landscapes.

Split anchor lying on a bed of prehistoric peat on the Fulham Foreshore in SW London. Traditionally anchors were cut in half once their boat was decommissioned

Area of prehistoric peat on the Fulham Foreshore facing upstream

In 2009 the Thames Discovery Programme (TDP) recorded three timber piles on the north bank of the foreshore at Fulham. Carbon-dated to the Iron Age (in Britain this is from 800 BCE to 43 CE, ending with the arrival of the Romans) it’s unclear what their function is. It’s known that there was a large Iron Age Roundhouse further upstream so it’s possible that the posts might have been part of a causeway or river crossing. Evidence of likely ancient ritual activity – the finding of worked stone tools and antler mattocks – has also been recorded in this vicinity so these tools may have been deposited in the Thames as offerings.

Three Iron Age timber posts on the Fulham Foreshore

The three Iron Age timber posts come and go. They should be visible at every low tide but this hasn’t been the case for quite some time. The river has done it’s usual ‘thing’ of shifting, changing and re-arranging itself so the timber posts have been covered by stones and gravel for a while.

However, luckily for me, on this occasion they’d re-appeared and were visible again. As I crunched my way along the shingle towards them to take some photos I noticed a bottle lying on the sand in front of one of them.

Fellows & Co. Chemists. St John. NB, apothecary bottle

Convinced it was bound to be broken I picked it up carefully but aside from a small chip on the rim it was complete. The cork was still in situ though closer examination of the contents revealed that whatever had once been inside had now been replaced by river water. My day was made, my mind was blown. Iron Age Britain metaphorically shaking hands across time with the 19th century. This is why I love mudlarking.

The bottle was embossed with the name ‘FELLOWS & CO. CHEMISTS. ST JOHN N.B.’ Made from clear glass, Victorian-era, definitely not a poison bottle as that would have been blue or green in colour. I still can’t believe it was just lying at the base of an ancient Iron Age timber post, deposited gently on that morning’s low tide as the waters slowly receded.

Fellows & Co Apothecary Bottle showing a slightly cracked rim but otherwise intact, complete with original cork

A quick online search revealed that Fellows & Co were Isaac Fellows and his son, James I. Fellows. Originally from St John, New Brunswick, Canada, they manufactured various household remedies, tinctures and medicines, also selling perfumes and other ‘fancy articles’ to the public, and advertising themselves as ‘Apothecaries to the Army and Navy’. Their most famous product was a tonic called ‘Fellows Compound Syrup of Hypophosphites.’ A further search of the contents of this ‘syrup’ revealed it contained some grisly ingredients – manganese, iron and alkaloid strychnine. Yet at that time it was deemed suitable for both adults and children. I’m making a wild guess that many patients felt far worse after taking it.

A promotion advertising ‘Fellows & Co’ medicines, chemicals and other sundry items from their store at Foster’s Corner, St John, New Brunswick, c.1878

You can say what you like about the 19th century but they knew how to advertise and Fellows & Co advertisements were ubiquitous and prolific. They also had their own laboratories – in Montreal, Canada; Vesey Street, New York; and in 1881 they opened one at 7 Snow Hill in the City of London. The latter might explain how this bottle ended up on the Thames Foreshore at Fulham. It would have been manufactured in Snow Hill then distributed to apothecary shops across the capital, so its journey here wasn’t quite as far as I’d originally thought.

My Thames-found bottle hadn’t contained their famous Compound Syrup of Hypophosphites as this would have been embossed on the bottle. More likely it contained another type of tincture or tonic. Some fairly ambitious and wild claims were made about the Compound Syrup at the time. One was that it was deemed highly efficient in the treatment of Tuberculosis, Chronic Bronchitis ‘and other affections of the respiratory organs. It is also employed in various nervous debilitating diseases with success.’

Fellows & Co relied heavily on testimonials from patients who were ‘cured’ or from doctors who had successfully ‘cured’ their patients having used these products. A signed statement from the Mayor of St John, New Brunswick, was an example of the praise lavished on this product:

‘I, Aaron Alward, Mayor of the City of St John, in the Province of New Brunswick, having examined the signatures attached to the foregoing permit of reference, hereby certify I believe them all genuine. I can also testify to the high therapeutic value of Fellows Compound Syrup of Hydrophosphites, consider it deserving of attention by the profession generally.’

Unfortunately for the Mayor and others who helpfully submitted testimonials, in June 1918, the American Medical Association Journal declared a complete lack of evidence showing that this product had any therapeutic value. Fellows & Co eventually took this criticism on board and by 1928 all wild claims regarding cures were if not removed at least heavily muted and the syrup was rebranded simply as a ‘good tonic.’ Quacks and quackery, those who were making dishonest claims about their medical skills, expertise and promising cures, were now being taken to task.

There’s quite a community of collectors of vintage medicine bottles with numerous examples of different types of Fellows bottles for anyone interested in pursuing this further, all easily found online with a quick search. I haven’t been able to find the exact date the company was wound up but am imagining probably in the 1940s or 1950s. If any of my North American readers have any more accurate info please let me know.

NB A valid permit is needed from the Port of London Authority for anyone wishing to mudlark, metal detect or search the Thames in any way. Link to read more here:

Thames foreshore permits | Port of London Authority

Thank you for reading.

From Roman London To Roman Provence (Via A Tiny Thames Gaming Piece)

‘And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.’

So Shakespeare tells us in Sonnet 18. And he’s correct. As we rattle on to the end of August, September is peeking cheekily round the corner and our parched and dry summer is coming to an end for this year. Tidying up in my garden, there’s already a sense of autumn, blackberries hanging off branches, leaves turning golden and falling from trees earlier than usual (though this is almost certainly due to the lack of rain) and the faintest sense and scent of smokiness in the evening air. It’ll soon be time to start digging out the jumpers to wear on crisp early morning mudlarking trips.

I’ve been holidaying in Roman Provence this July. Ok, I know other people’s holiday snaps and anecdotes are tedious but please bear with. My jaunt to the south of France has a purpose and is a glorious link to a recent mudlarking find on the Thames Foreshore. All will be revealed as you read on.

Incomplete Roman bone gaming counter found by me on the Thames Foreshore

Obverse of my incomplete Roman bone gaming counter

I’ve spotted Roman finds at various Thames Foreshore locations, not just in one particular area that’s known for its Roman artefacts. Without a shadow of a doubt far fewer finds are made here these days, as in most areas on the river, and yet there are always interesting discoveries waiting to be made.

A few months ago I found something white and round lodged between two rocks and an ancient piece of timber. Thinking it was a piece of shell I nearly didn’t pick it up, but of course I picked it up. Rule number one in the Mudlarking Rule book – always ALWAYS pick things up; turn them over in your hand, weigh them, feel them, look at them properly. If still in doubt, ask a fellow mudlark. It so happened that conveniently one of these was larking on the foreshore nearby and he confirmed it as a bone gaming counter, though an unusual one. (The fellow mudlark was called Guy – do give him a follow on Instagram @mudlarking.about ) I took the artefact to show my FLO (Finds Liaison Officer) Stuart Wyatt at the London Museum as per the requirement of every mudlarking permit holder, i.e. to report your finds regularly so that the most noteworthy can be recorded on the PAS (Portable Antiquities Scheme) database. The link is here for those who want to read more about this useful resource and fantastic archaeological database https://finds.org.uk/

And I’m thrilled to say my bone counter is now recorded on the PAS – Record ID: LON-AA4BF5 – if you wish to see the detail for yourselves.

An assortment of Roman pottery sherds, burnt tegula fragment and my bone gaming counter – all found by me on the Thames Foreshore. Similar potsherds have been discovered in graves and cremations

It’s incomplete, not as glamorous as some of the bone gaming counters found by other mudlarks on the foreshore, but as it’s the first one I’ve ever found of this type I’m more than happy with that. Dating from 50 – 410 CE, the counter itself is sub circular in plan and is undecorated except for a central concave depression and a small central hole on one side, possibly from a lathe. The edges are bevelled outwards. Similar counters can be found in the reference books and papers of Crummy (Nina Crummy, Roman small finds expert and also expert in Roman material culture.) Also known as a Kenyon type A, these were produced throughout the Roman period with little variation.

The gaming counter has been heated in a fire and turned white and distorted. Fellow mudlark and artist Ed Bucknall ( also well worth a follow on Instagram at @edjbucknall) has suggested this could indicate the gaming counter might have been part of a Roman cremation. In other words, funerary goods.

The Roman Empire was multi-cultural and allowed a surprisingly diverse number of religious beliefs, though some were initially treated with suspicion, hostility and subject to persecution, e.g Christianity. Emperor Constantine famously converted to Christianity before the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 CE, though he continued to patronise other religions, clearly hedging his bets in order to safeguard his soul in the afterlife ‘just in case.’ Emperor Theodosius was the one who finally made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 CE.

Londinium in late Antiquity showing Southwark as part of the Roman City

In Londinium as elsewhere, burial customs were adopted from all parts of the Roman Empire, adapted to suit, then later abandoned. Wealthy Roman citizens were able to commission elaborate tombs in contrast with those who were poor and whose bodies were often dumped into open pits. Burials were not permitted within the city walls and cemeteries were located away from cities, for both public health, superstitious and religious reasons, tombstones often found along main roads. Archaeological excavations of burial grounds give us a great deal of information and show a wide range of burial rites. These include conventional inhumation through to cremation and ‘bustum’, where the body was cremated over a burial pit. Many types of grave goods, including food offerings and personal objects, have been found alongside these burials. What is now the Southwark area of modern London has been the site of excavation for decades and archaeology has revealed it to have been an important place for the burial of Londinium’s dead. It was a significant area, though outside the main city walls, accessible by the first ever London Bridge built by the Romans across the River Thames.

London and the Thames looked very different two thousand years ago. The south of the river was marshy, what we now know as Southwark was essentially two large gravel islands which formed the southern bridgehead for the original (Roman) London Bridge. Major roads were built here to connect to other Roman cities in the south of England e.g. Watling Street (connecting Londinium to Canterbury) and Stane Street (connecting Londinium to Chichester.) Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) have carried out excavations in Southwark and archaeologists have found remains of high status stone buildings together with mosaics, hypocaust heating systems and painted wall frescos.

Wooden jetties, warehouses and other remnants of waterfront activities show that the Southwark side of the river was just as much a centre of trade as the north side, and with strong links to the rest of the Roman Empire.

I was fascinated to read via the Southwark Council website that south of Borough tube station the Roman landscape was once dominated by a very large cemetery, including a number of mausoleums, walled areas containing graves and monuments to the dead lining the road along Stane Street and Watling Street. The link to more information about the history of Southwark is here:

https://www.southwark.gov.uk/planning-environment-and-building-control/planning/design-and-conservation/archaeology-and/roman

I don’t know if my bone gaming counter came from a cremation in Southwark, but it came from somewhere and it might as well have been from Roman Southwark as anywhere else. Though there were also other cemeteries north, east and west of Londinium’s city walls.

Worn section of terracotta roof tile, possibly Roman or later, showing a makeshift gaming board

The river often plays games with us and coincidentally I found a worn, incomplete section of terracotta roof tile near where I’d found the bone gaming counter. I like to imagine someone beavering away making tiles and laying them out to dry in a courtyard. Boredom sets in and they idly mark a square piece of spare clay into a grid. Not a fancy gaming board that a high status individual or soldier might have used for the playing of Ludus Latrunculorum (similar to chess or draughts, the winner is the player who’s captured the most pieces) but a poor man’s or woman’s gaming board – functional, portable, will do the job. Something to while away the long hours in the tile maker’s yard when the boss wasn’t looking. That said, it’s impossible to tell if this is Roman clay; it could be later, but was found in an area of foreshore where Roman artefacts are found, and it’s the rich terracotta colour of the Roman era. I’ll never know, but it’s fun to let the imagination run riot and there’s no harm in speculating. And on this note, a third favourite mudlarking Insta recommendation is Peter (aka @ _tidetravel ) who writes in a much more evocative way about his mudlarked finds than I’ve done above, and really takes you back in time with his stories and descriptions of artefacts. He’s well worth a follow.

Photo taken by my daughter, me striking a pose in front of the Pont du Gard

I am obsessed with Provence in the south of France. Mostly because of the history – Provence has some of the world’s most impressive Roman remains – but also the food and wine are rather good too. The name ‘Provence’ itself is a translation of the word ‘province’, i.e province of Rome. In Arles, Aix-en-Provence, Nîmes, Orange and Vaison-la-Romaine, you will find some of the best preserved arenas, amphitheatres, spas, villas and other monuments anywhere in the Roman world.

I’ve wanted to visit the Pont du Gard for my entire adult life and finally managed to do so this summer. It wasn’t hugely busy either, though we went on a scorchingly hot July day. Situated in the Gard department of Languedoc-Roussillon, 20 kilometres from Nîmes (Roman Nemausus), the Pont du Gard was an aqueduct constructed by the Romans in approximately 19BCE to 50CE as part of a system to carry water for 50 kilometres across hills and valleys to the wealthy of Nemausus for their fountains, baths, gardens and drinking water.

After the Roman Empire collapsed, the aqueduct fell into disuse. Over time the stone blocks were looted, eventually it was used as a toll bridge, then repaired and restored to the stunning monument we see today. There is also a museum, cafés and a gift shop as you enter the site (and some of the best ice cream for sale in Languedoc-Roussillon.)

Flowing through the arches of the aqueduct is the gentle river Gardon that can rise and flood and be torrential during the winter months. We swam in its waters on the hottest of hot days of our visit and it was difficult to imagine it as a viciously turbulent mass of water. Roman engineers were highly skilled and designed the foundations of the bridge in a shape like the tip of the prow of a ship, thus helping protect the aqueduct from violent currents. As we swam, and I checked the shallow river bed for artefacts (there weren’t any but it’s impossible to keep that mudlarking eye still, even when on holiday) I imagined the labourers and soldiers building the aqueduct all those millennia ago and wondering if they also played board games in their precious downtime using bone gaming counters, just like the one I found on the Thames. I’m sure they did.

Foundation stones of the Pont du Gard, designed like the prow of a ship to withstand storms and heavy currents

Spectacular views of the Gardon from the Pont du Gard

Prior to making our way down south to Provence we stopped off in Paris for a few days to visit my two favourite museums in the capital. If you haven’t been, I highly recommend the Musée Carnavalet ( free to enter) in Le Marais and the Musée Cluny (not free to enter) in St Germain-des-Prés; both museums are closed on a Monday. If you can’t cope with the huge crowds in the Louvre or Musée d’Orsay then these two smaller museums are perfect for you. The Cluny is France’s National Museum of the Middle Ages. In the heart of the Latin Quarter, it’s an amazing collection of historical buildings comprising Gallo-Roman thermae or public baths with divine exhibits everywhere you look, many familiar to my fellow mudlarks. Gazing at the contents of the cabinets it really was like greeting old friends.

Strolling from the Carnavalet to the Cluny, where many familiar saintly friends were on display, it was comforting to see this sort of Medieval ‘Entente Cordiale’ via the medium of religious artefacts bought, and lost, by pilgrims over the centuries. Featuring St Thomas Becket, St Veronica, St Anthony, Our Lady and also many unfamiliar ones. Clearly pilgrims travelled to many different shrines across Europe and quite a few of the badges on display have not, to my knowledge, been found in the Thames e.g. St Fiacre en Brie, St Maur, St Vincent, St Léonard, St Julien of Le Mans, St Geneviève and St Corneille.

Medieval pilgrim badges and their molds, greeted like old friends

And I’m finishing this blog with a ‘save the date’ reminder. The first of our mudlarking exhibitions for Totally Thames 2025 will be taking place at the Guildhall Art Gallery in the City of London, on Saturday 6th September and Sunday 7th September (I’ll be exhibiting my finds on the 6th only.) If you’ve never visited, the Guildhall is the site of Londinium’s amphitheatre and a stunning building, the perfect setting for a mudlarking exhibition.

The link below will take you to the complete calendar of events for Totally Thames 2025, including the fascinating ‘Lost and Found’ series of events. These feature the stories of prison hulks, ancient wharves, East African seamen who settled on the Thames and many others revealed from archives, family histories and mudlarked objects from the river. For centuries the Thames has re-shaped the city of London and its people, connecting local communities with global flows of trade, migration and ideas.

https://thamesfestivaltrust.org/heritage-programme/lost-found/?fbclid=PAQ0xDSwMSjUhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABp7jXGoYJ-R_8krrpPiBs0QuCV_XpO2xYg0vOZH-I0F0OgtoQy8CXmxksEZ1Q_aem_etZmWzUkvjbJlXUjlna-FQ

Do come! Looking forward to seeing everyone there.

NB It is a legal requirement to have a valid permit from the PLA (Port of London Authority) to mudlark on the River Thames.