Mudlarking the River Thames - Finding the Treasures left behind by people long ago (May 2021)

now i've just seen something poking out  of the mud over there it's got a rounded   edge and i shall zoom in on it see what you think it's just just there you see it's got  like a little hole in the top   so let's go and see if it is anything  or if it's just a piece of metal let's go have a look oh it definitely looks like something   oh it's quite bendy maybe it's plastic  oh no here we go what's this some kind of little label isn't it oh i like that something per mile shropshire iron something oh lovely oh that's something to research isn't it okay nice little find now down here i've just seen this little chain  and i'm wondering or i'm rather hoping that it   might be part of some chain mail but i've got to  be honest i have no idea it really might not be   but i'm going to have to ask simon i'm sure he'll  be able to tell me but wouldn't it be amazing if   it was that would be the first piece of chain  mail that i found i really really hope it is fingers crossed now down here i've just seen the neck of a bottle  poking out just here look you see of course i'm   now full of hope that perhaps it's an entire  bottle how amazing would that be but probably   quite unlikely let's see what there is let's see  what there is no it's definitely not a whole one   oh gosh that would be so amazing wouldn't it  i think i don't know i can still feel it going   down it might be just a nice neck let's have a  look let's see what we've got underneath here i'm going to i think it's just a nice neck  i'm going to turn the camera off and i'll come   back when i've got it out well it is just the  neck but it's a very delightful neck part of a an onion bottle i believe and look  at the color look at the lovely color   that's coming through there now that  rainbow hue let's give it a little   rinse off i've had a little investigate down  here and i can't find signs of any more of it most unfortunately right here we are let's  give it a little rinse off that's a lovely   example of a neck of a mallet bottle  or an onion bottle oh that's so nice that's beautiful i reckon there's going to  be a lovely color come out on that as well look see what we've got over here  it's a beautiful old boat hook   look at that now that's nice isn't it I shall have to take that i just stopped here because  i saw this piece of shrapnel   sitting amongst the rocks left over from  the second world war and then i noticed the   neck of a bottle so i just pulled it out not  expecting there to be still in it the stopper   there's always a delight finding a  bottle neck with a stopper in it still   just here though we'll have to give it a  wash i'll leave my shrapnel there a second   all right let's give this a little wash yeah nice little place to wash it oh yeah look  at that lovely stopper it's full of bubbles so i can get it out yeah look  at that wow i've never seen   a stopper like that with all those  bubbles in it's like a fizzy stopper   look at that it's so pretty let's find the sun and do the obligatory bottle stopper in the sun shot very nice indeed i've seen a pipe bowl over  here it looks quite large oh there's a little shrimp or something in there   see that little shrimp swimming  around something just came out of it   oh my gosh it's got something on it oh look  at that oh wow i love that it's a pirate pipe oh i've never seen one like that  before i absolutely love that oh my goodness that is find of the day oh amazing skull and crossbones pipe look at this so see what we've got here look see the end of a pipe stem let's see if there's a bowl on the end oh i think there might be i think  there might be you know see that   you can see a nice fluted bowl there oh look at that that's gorgeous let's ease it out and  there we have it a beautiful fluted clay pipe oh really pleased with that so i just spent ages digging out this  piece of metal here looks like a bit of   copper hoping it might have something on  it i don't think it does but i quite like   it so i'm going to take it home and clean  it up and try and make something with it so stay tuned for that i just saw a round piece of glass down  here and a little bit of investigation   shows that it's a really nice stopper  look at that isn't it gorgeous little bottle stopper well what's caught my eye over  there those two plates and of course   i love finding pottery on the thames  but these look a lot more modern and   i can also see that they've got some  writing on them so what's going on here then what is going on so so somebody has written  their thoughts on a plate   and throwing them in the river i  guess to let go must be quite recent i guess there is that sense that when you  throw something into the river especially   at high tide and you just see it disappear  that you can let go of painful emotions   and that's what we're looking at here lots and  lots of painful emotions written on a plate okay i'm going to take you over this little  patch here there's lots of little bits and pieces   lots and lots of little bits of metal here  and if we go a little bit further over here   i have seen something down here  which i'm hoping is an old coin just here can you see it it's just here look let's see what it is yeah that's definitely an old coin but what old  coin is it it's quite quite uh quite worn isn't it we might not be able to see what  that is but i'm gonna put it in my   finds bag and take a closer look at it later now over there i've just seen what looks like   one of our favorite finds a  pipe bowl look can you see it just there let's go and take a closer look indeed it is probably just a little bowl oh oh look it's actually got a maker  on it which is excellent and well i haven't seen that one before that looks like nightingale that is a new one  for me where was it made nightingale stratford well that's great something new to  look up a pipe maker called nightingale stratford it's obviously been out of the  mud for some time because it's not black well i'm looking forward to  looking up nightingale from stratford oh my goodness look what we've got  here i know exactly what these are   and do you if you've watched some of my  previous videos you may recognize these well these are fish throat teeth otherwise  known as pharyngeal teeth in the throats   of fish such as carp and actually i think  these could be carp pharyngeal teeth   hi everyone welcome to my studio  and if you've made it this far   that's really great news because it means that i'm  going to be able to share with you the information   that i have found out about this marvellous magical  mudlarking display of objects in front of me here   on this table but firstly i hope that wherever  you are you're having a good time and that   you're having a fantastic morning evening  afternoon night whatever time of day it is   with you i wasn't here last week so it's  doubly exciting to be here this sunday   sharing this video with you so i'm going to start  straight away with what has to be my favorite   finds and if you're a regular watcher of my videos  you may have guessed that that is going to be   clay pipe related and it is indeed this one  here this marvelous skull and crossbones pipe   which i must admit when i picked it up it just  transported me straight to the galleon of a   pirate a swashbuckling pirate with a sword in one  hand and a clay pipe this one in the other hand   and you could forgive me for that because it  does have this marvelous skull and crossbones   on it and of course i also have proof that pirates  exist on the river thames in the form of these two   thames found pirates so what more proof do we need  that there were and probably are still pirates   on the river thames and i'm sure that  any pirate would be smoking a a clay pipe   with a skull and crossbones on it but the reality  is this clay pipe wasn't smoked by a pirate   it was more likely smoked by a soldier in  the 17th lancers and i'm going to tell you   a little bit about them they were a cavalry  regiment of the british army and their motto   was "death or glory" and also you'll  see the cap badge here has the very same   skull and crossbones on it now interestingly  they had their depot at woolwich in 1852 and   i found this clay pipe very close to woolwich and  so it looks almost certain that the 17th lancers   were out and about one day having a  smoke and for whatever reason this one   got tossed into the river maybe the soldier broke  it accidentally but also thanks very much to   Paul Gamble he has an entire intact clay pipe  exactly the same one and marked on the stem is   indeed 17th lancers and Paul has kindly allowed me  to put a picture of his pipe here on the screen so   thank you very much for that Paul and thank you  also to Mark Julian who actually pointed out   this clay pipe which Paul had found and asked paul  if i could use the picture so thanks very much   mark and paul it's always really nice to have  a full example of something that you've found   so i've got the bowl and Paul has the entire  pipe so Paul if you want to swap just let me   know i'll be very happy to do that so that's  that now also funnily enough the barracks   where the 17th lancers were at woolwich were  called the the shrapnel barracks and of course   i found a rather nice piece of shrapnel on the  foreshore which is here i've shined it all up   a little remnant of world war ii and i should  mention as well i think if you you might remember   in the video i put this shrapnel down on a rock  to go and wash off the the fizzy bottle stopper   which is here i also put down the boat hook  when i went to wash the fizzy bottle stopper   and unfortunately the shrapnel is the only thing  that came back because i totally forgot about the   boat hook so i don't know what was going on in my  little mind then but anyway i left the boat hook   so if you're down on the thames foreshore and you  come across a boat hook it could be it could be the   one that i found maybe it's still there i'll have  to go back and check so that's the story of the   skull and crossbones 17th lancers clay pipe and we  may as well stick to clay pipes for a minute i've   got this one here which is you know compared  to the skull and crossbones one is just so   very flouncy and and feminine isn't it i mean it  probably was smoked by a man too but it just looks   so much more um feminine almost operatic it's got  these beautiful curtains there and it's also got   a very pronounced maker's mark on it and it was  made by william cope a woolwich clay pipe maker it's always great to find the makers on clay  pipes because it does add an extra layer of   interest and intrigue and indeed this one which  i found was rather unexpected i've not found   a clay pipe by this maker before it's marked  with nightingale of stratford so i immediately   started researching nightingale the clay  pipe maker of stratford and thanks to resources   like the society for clay pipe research and the  pipe archive and there's all sorts of information   out there so i did establish that there was a  thomas nightingale who was making clay pipes in   the early 19th century he was born in 1820 died in  1860 but i think in fact that this clay pipe was   made by his father william nightingale also a clay  pipe maker and the reason i think that is because   when i was looking at the electoral registers and  the records of where they were all living at the   time it seems that his father william  was living a lot closer to stratford   than where thomas was apparently making his pipes  and so this clay pipe here could have been made by   william nightingale back in the early 19th century  and i've actually managed to find out that there   are some descendants so i've written to them  and if they get back to me and they'd like to   have this clay pipe then i shall be giving it  to them because it's it's always really special   being able to reunite objects that we find in the  mud with families that may have a link to them so   that would be a great thrill to give this pipe  to the to the descendants of the nightingale   pipe making family so that's that for my pipes i'm  going to move on to this tiny little find here i'm   so glad i picked these up i nearly didn't you know  but i have checked and my mudlarking friend   and colleague monika has confirmed that this is  indeed a chain mail so i'm really excited about   that because i've never actually found any chain  mail before and it probably dates to the 15th or   16th century i mean that's just amazing isn't  it to hold in your hand something from the 15th   or 16th century it was probably hand forged  made of copper alloy and would have been part   of a suit of armor so that's just incredible  holding a little piece of history like that   in my hand um moving on to my lovely coin  here lovely but very very worn and despite my   mud larking friend steve giving me a couple of  books on coins sorry steve i can't identify it   and i can see the faint profile of a monarch  on there i'm going to take a photograph or two   i'm going to put it up on the screen and maybe  you can tell me what this coin is i'm really bad   at coins i'll be honest i'm just pretty bad  at coins so here's a lovely coin what is it?   i'm going to move on to this beautiful old  tag which was probably attached to a big   roll of cables i think on here is the shropshire  iron co limited of hadley near wellington salop   and by the way i found out something i didn't know  today that salop is another name for shropshire   shropshire iron company limited manufactured all  kinds of iron and steel and telegraph cables too   so that's why i think that this  probably came off of a roll of cable   that's my feeling but who knows but i do  love it just so so much nicer than the   plastic labels that we get today and that's  been sitting in the mud for for a long time   because it's got the date of 1908 stamped  on it now this piece of pottery here has an   interesting story to it unbeknownst to me at the  same time that i found that my mudlarking friend   Germander Speedwell also found a piece with some  different words on it but from the same epigram   and she did some fantastic research and found the  epigram which dates back to the early 18th century   so this is the rest of the epigram so there we  are it's always nice to fit a piece of something   into the jigsaw puzzle and see what the rest of it  is so thanks to Germander i now know what that line   comes from brilliant research as always. Germaner's   brilliant look her up on twitter @GermanderS   she finds all sorts of incredible things in the  mud and does some really fantastic research too   oh here we are we've got round to the marvellous  teeth now a few years ago probably about two   years ago actually i found some of these teeth i  was horrified at the time to find out that they   are fish teeth i haven't realized that fish have  throat teeth but they do and these probably come   from a carp and so now i have not only one but  two uh well let's say an entire set of pharyngeal   teeth that would have once upon a time been in  the throat of the carp so that when it sucks in   all its little shrimps and plankton and whatever  else it sucks in it gets all kind of ground up   in the fish's throat so there we are they are  just so curious looking they really are so strange   and so there you are don't put your finger in a  cart's throat or any fish throat for that matter i'm going to move on here to this beautiful  bottleneck this bottleneck of disappointment   every mudlark knows what it's like to  come across a bottleneck of disappointment   you see it there and you think oh is it going to  be a whole bottle and you start digging and then   you realize that it's just going to be a piece  but it's still beautiful in its own right and it   it probably dates to at least the 18th century  so i mean again to hold history in your hand   that dates back to the 18th century it's it's  just absolutely marvelous so i've got that   it joins my collection of other bottlenecks of  disappointment but this gives me the opportunity   to just show you my onion bottle definitely not of  disappointment but which could have been because   it started off the same way the neck was sticking  out of the mud i started to delve down deeper and   pulled out the neck broken but then to my  delight discovered that the rest of it was   there in the mud so here it is i managed to stick  it together and it remains to this day one of my   favorite ever finds but it started off with the  neck poking out there my heart was beating with   excitement as i started to excavate it so that  was one of the that was one of the the lucky ones   i've also got my great big piece of metal i  haven't done anything with it yet but i soon   will be i'm going to spend a little bit of time  getting creative soon so hopefully i'll be able to   make something out of that so i think that's  it so thanks very much for watching if you've   got any additional information that you'd like  to share please do put it in the comments below   if you've enjoyed this video please like and  subscribe if you're not subscribed already and   if you'd like to treat me to a virtual cup of  earl grey tea then that would be wonderful but   no obligation you do not have to at all my  kofi site which is where you can contribute   to um treat me to a great cup of tea i shall put  the details in the description of this video but   honestly it's really quite enough that you watch  my video and that you enjoy it that gives me the   greatest pleasure of all so i hope that your  week ahead is a good one and i'm really looking   forward to seeing you again very soon with some  more history from the river thames thank you bye so you

Channel: nicola white mudlark - Tideline Art

Views: 76,483

Rating: 4.9703484 out of 5

Keywords: mudlarking, mudlark, best mudlarking finds, mudlarking in london, nicola white, nicola white mudlark, nicola white tidelineart, 17th lancers, clay pipes, mudlarking youtube, mudlarking videos, mudlarking youtube videos

Id: lDwGrNZ8r5Y

Length: 32min 47sec (1967 seconds)

Published: Sun May 09 2021