Once Upon a River

The history submerged in the River Thames is as deep and murky as the sea it leads to. People have crisscrossed from shore to shore of London’s old docks since the days of Brutus of Troy in 100-1100 BC.

This series documents the Mudlarkers who comb the shore of the Thames looking for a piece, a speck of its history that has been swallowed and spat back out of the think mud that lines its deep bed. A Mudlark was the pejorative term for a shore sweeper in the Victorian era, but now it has been adopted by a new breed of treasure hunters, armed with metal detectors and spades.

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This series was published in Slow Magazine and the BBC.