Searching a Drained Canal in London - Strange Objects Revealed (June 2021)

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] today it's june the 4th 2021 and i've come for a very wet and blustery walk along the hertford union canal in london the last time i was here was in early march and the view from this bridge was vastly different and so was the weather it was a lot lot better looking at the canal now you can only guess what might be lurking on the bottom but back in march when the canal was drained for maintenance work the true story of what has been thrown or lost in the canal over the years was laid bare for all to see my friend simon born of sci-finds fame whose video you may have seen documenting the canal cleanup arranged for us to volunteer for the canal and river trust so over a couple of days we donned our waders and set out to remove as much detritus as we could from the drained canal we also kept an eye open for historical artifacts on the surface all looks well but underneath it's a different story this video documents some of what we found could you tell us a little bit about the canal and river trust diana please okay so the canal river trust is in charge of looking after the waterways all across the nation i am a part of the central team we cover from little venice down the region's canal to the limehouse basin and then up the river lee to the tottenham lock including the line house cut and the hartford junior canal which is where we will be working today so the hartford union was drained to do some vital repair work to the walls these canals are heritage in fact the region's canal which you see behind me right now that connects to the hartford union is 200 years old it's gathered a lot of wastes people are always throwing plastics tires all sorts of rubbish gets thrown in as well as things just naturally falling in so our goal today is to try and reduce plastic pollution and other contamination by removing some of that rubbish and aiding the biodiversity canals are a blue green corridor they are vital for wildlife not only providing habitat themselves but connecting other habitats so animals can get to new areas to feed or breed or whatever else it is they need to do so um yeah the work we'll be doing today is vital for the maintenance we do like to engage anyone who wishes to improve their well-being by the water so anyone who wants to get involved with the canal and river trust head to our website drop us an email we would be happy to see you well today i've come along with my best friend emma emma what is your canal story my canal story um cut take two well here today is also emma my best friend and she's going to be helping with the canal cleanup now emma you have a bit of a sad canal hail don't you i do unfortunately i have a suspected root canal and here i am on the regents come out so nicola had to make a joke about that so yeah i'm in great pain and no i'm here to clean up and help the canal be much healthier than it is today okay so canal stories all around so let's hope that we're going to do some really good clearing up today and maybe even find some interesting stuff too thank you what's this oh now that is a religious offering something here looks like a watch let's see what it is it's a watch it's definitely not working but still it's a watch oh no looks happened again the other day it was a a doll head with oh dear she's stuck on there get her out the other day it was a doll head let's try and untangle her today it's a full-on doll wow look at her look at this i don't know who she is but you see she's a little bit more of a candidate for the thames toys orphans than the or should we call it the canal orphans than the doll i found yesterday with screws in her ears i can see over there a doll head that i'd really like to get but i don't know if i can just there see it let's see if i can get it i'm gonna have to put the camera away though look mission successful i got her oh my goodness me that's a bit weird she's got screws for earrings [Music] a lovely [Music] 1999 yes to it [Music] so i just found an old pair of sunglasses and i threw them anna accidentally sort of right at her and now she's going to put them on anna you can't put those on yeah she has a little bit of an email hello lovely [Music] baby [Music] i think i found a little ring margaret ah yeah i'm gonna pick it up now and see if it is it could be a washer of course it's just here yeah i think it is a ring i don't think it's gold yeah it's going to sit it might be that wedding that you're looking for oh this is a ring cheers isn't it should give it a little wash surely yay okay so i've just found like a jawbone here and it's got really sharp sharp teeth now what did that come from that must be some kind of fish surely look at that those little dagger-like teeth wow whatever it is i wouldn't like to be bitten by it hey harry what's going on just found a bottle i think it might be old but it's nice it's lovely wow that's beautiful what's it got on it it's uh from new york but it's spanish oh that's gorgeous so maybe like some sort of cuban brewery yeah let me see [Applause] what does it say oh aqua de florida well that's a lovely bottle murray land man oh drug a oh okay yeah like you're saying yes drugistus new york oh that's a special bottle i say that's gotta be find of the day that's really gorgeous yeah really nice right let's go see how emma's getting on oh hi hi i've done five buckets full of glass and everything you can possibly tins um i haven't found anything too interesting to find a piece of glass with some lettering on but i don't think it was that interesting really was it but um yeah i know it's just so amazing there's huge pieces of metal pipes bricks oh lord knows what loads of plastic it's just so amazing to be here to clean all this away i'm so clean apparently it was pouring down with rain yesterday it was didn't you see i do so i was at my desk all day yesterday so i didn't notice yeah but yeah no it's great i'm so pleased to be here helping out with this brilliant now just down here i can see the top of a stoneware bottle let's see if it's entire oh it is look and it's our white oh that's a nice one that's a lovely stonework bottle oh whites oh look at that that's gorgeous oh white's ginger beer look at that lovely logo very nice very pleased with that i just prodded what i thought was the bottom of a broken bottle and it is in fact a lovely little victorian era inkwell there it's also broken but it's still really nice you can see where people used to put their pens nice little piece of history [Applause] this is such a retro pattern on this plate don't you just love that a saucer for every gardener any gardener would love that crown clarence that's very nice i've just seen what looks like another little stoneware bottle down here look just here you can see the signs of it next to what looks like a little jazzy tile as well let's have a look at this tile oh it's very retro isn't it make a nice coaster and here is the little stoneware bottle let's see if it's intact and it is cute little stoneware bottle very nice pop those in the bucket it's very sludgy around here you have to be so careful you can suddenly just disappear up to your knees we are the bucket enjoying the doll various other dubious objects what is that oh my goodness i found a kangaroo with a flag well i haven't seen anything like that before it's a funny little thing isn't it [Music] so there seems to be a wealth of whimsies under this bridge and i lost one and simon's just found it again so i found about three horses two polar bears and three gorillas and you found one didn't you silence yeah let's see or something or a horse or something of course that's funny isn't it somebody must have just thrown a whole load of them over the over the edge oh oh oh i think i've got another one here look just here oh and another one loads of polar bears how bizarre look sai yeah another you have a family of them now won't you anna has just found the same as me you found a gorilla too that's so funny so now we've i like these and i have a sort of feeling for gorillas because i mean gorilla trekking three times lovely order of congo and i saw them and they actually live in nests with flies passing around their heads in massive circles who knew i've got my own oh now what's this this looks like it could be an old toy it's a very very um very battered actually horrific looking kind of what do you love oh do what you love well you know what we love do what you love always what do you love well you do what you love do what you love well you're a mod lover you're a mud lover oh he loves it so you do mud i do what i loved and i lost mud i've really found the creature from the deep here it's a fine specimen well i can't really put it back can i look at him pulsing foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so talking of rubbish following up i've just bumped into two people what are your names nick and bronty nick and bronty who are doing a fantastic job continuing the picking up litter and who are you doing this with um we work at fashion we have a branch of bordeaux to do swimwear focusing on recycling materials and we've got a collaboration with the london brand rayburn who are pioneers in sustainable fashion and we're focusing on plastic today although we are picking up other other stuff as well um but it's really just about education we just want to get some content we're meeting our our team in a minute and we're going to try and we're going to try and create some arts out of the plastic but the rain might not allow us to do that today but we're going to try and organize it and it just it creates conversation about you know what what what is the plastic you know where's it come from who what's the main culprits and um you know how can humans change their behavior to to lessen their impact on on nature and the waterways so um yes you see lots of styrofoam which i think comes from garden centers and things a lot of confectionery wrappers plastic water bottles obviously key culprits cigarette like rizzler wrapper things cigarette wrappers uh balloons blooms seem to you know float up in the air and then land down in the waterways um anything else a lot of graffiti artists around here and leaving their little caps of their bottles and the actual cans as well they're doing some great graffiti we're going to just leave all their stuff here and then it'll end up going into the water we actually thought we found a lot of bottles we thought there'd be more in terms of like takeaway cutlery and things like that but we've not actually found that much of that quite a few bottles and the obvious coffee cups for people mooching around on the weekends you know there's not as much as i thought there'd be but there are still a lot and the question is do you need the lid as well uh if you're not doing a massive hike um can you walk with the plastic lid so how long has it taken you to collect these two three massive great bags of three and a half rubbish yeah three and a half yeah like an hour one hour one hour so look at this i mean we really need to learn how to dispose of our waste in a more responsible manner don't we so yeah so we've made we've made some swim shorts and they're made out of recycled plastic bottles uh with the shark print and then we've also done a squid print as well with all biodegradable trims brilliant excellent and world oceans day you mentioned is that on tuesday yes tuesday the 8th of june tuesday the 8th of june so very appropriate indeed and who are the organizations that are working together so it's rayburn and boardies okay let's have a look at that well done rayburn and boodies keep up the brilliant work guys hi everyone i'm here down on the thames foreshore and very shortly i'm going to do the draw i'm going to do it live to see who has won the muddlarks treasures by ted sandling but as i'm here and it would be rude not to and it's such a beautiful afternoon i'm going to have a little mud lark first and see if we can find a few bits and pieces and then we'll do the draw so stick with me and let's see what we're going to find and let's see who's going to be the three winners of the mudlark's treasures book well see what i've spotted down here it looks like an echinoid to me quite a nice one too wedged in between those rocks yeah definitely let's go and give it a little rinse off here's a nice little puddle do the trick nicely yeah that certainly is an economic one of the oldest things that you're going to find on the thames for sure i've seen something down here something round here it is it's a button it's a little bit crusty i can't see if there's anything on there at the moment i wonder if i give it a little give it a little rinse no can't quite see if there's anything on there at the moment we'll take a closer look later i have seen something there can you see what i'm looking at it's a little gob here it is jacks or an ali gob made out of clay or porcelain the game early 1900s late 19th century i was nearly washed off into the thames then i'll tell you what before i was nearly washed in i saw something down here that looked as if it could be a clay pipe it would be a shame not to have a clay pipe before the grand draw just down here i was just about to extract it and then i was nearly knocked off my feet cheeky little tide you've got to watch out for that tide you know yay look it is great it's a little bit broken i think it's got a maker on it though [Applause] dripping yeah there we have it a nice defined mark so defined that i can't read it but that looks like an eye or a j i think in any case we have a pipe [Applause] we have bathing going on in the thames over there right time to go home and do this draw hi everyone here i am in my studio and i'm about to do the draw to see who is going to win ted sandling's book a mudlax treasures in fact there are three copies that are going to be won a few weeks ago i did a collaboration with the author and model arc ted sandling and he did a book giveaway so we got three books to give away and lots and lots of you entered this competition there are many people in it to win it so let's go see who's going to win a copy so i'm going to attempt to share my screen i'm doing a little zoom call all on my own here and i'm going to share this screen which is a random comment picker for youtube thank you very much to simon for telling me about it makes it a lot easier than cutting out the comments and putting them in a hat so i put the url in i'm going to filter duplicate users and i am going to get the comments and as you will see there are lots and lots of comments so good luck everyone and thank you everyone for entering for showing such a lot of interest it really is a great book it's a slightly revised addition to the last one and it also accompanies the new audio book of the same name so let's start the raffle and see who the first winner is going to be and it is joe metcalf well done joe you are winner number one of the first book so let's do the second let's get rid of this advert pick another winner [Music] tamara gill you are the second winner well done and pick another winner purple plump so there we have it our three winners so well done and if you can contact me through my website which is tidelineart.com there's a contact page at the end so you can contact me via that and give me your addresses and we will get your books to you as soon as possible so well done to everybody who won and thank you to everybody else who entered now let me stop sharing my screen and go back here and say a few words to you before i go thank you very much for watching my video i hope you enjoyed it i had a lot of fun making it you've probably seen simon bourne's video documenting the canal cleanup ii and if you haven't you may want to go see it because he's got lots of fines in his video that i haven't got in mind so it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience and i went back there just the other day and it was really good to see it full again and i'm sure that taking out all that rubbish made such a big difference and so a big shout out to the canal and river trust and also to nick and bronte who are making fantastic clothes out of recycled plastic so it's great and i hope it raises a lot of awareness about our plastic pollution problem and when you see those poor little birds nibbling away at plastic bags and making nests out of plastic you just can't help be kind of um touched and motivated really to just discard of plastic in such a lot more of a responsible way so thank you everyone i hope that you all have a really great week ahead and i'm looking forward to seeing you again very soon take care bye bye [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: nicola white mudlark - Tideline Art

Views: 319,310

Rating: 4.902019 out of 5

Keywords: drained canal, mudlarking, nicola white, nicola white mudlark, hertford union canal, regents canal, plastic pollution, plastic ocean

Id: QDda5nDDxLc

Length: 31min 42sec (1902 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 06 2021