hjdoom

After the past few times of being shouted at on the foreshore, I decided to go somewhere quieter - Wapping. Low tide wasn't until 17:15 so I had a whole day to fill first. I walked from Blackfriars to St Katharine Dock and as I walked past the HMS Belfast decided to jump aboard! I quite enjoyed it, having never visited it before. I also popped in to Southwark Cathedral and saw the latest mudlarking case.

When I got to Wapping, I apologised to photographers as I got in the way of their shots as they were blocking the stairs onto the foreshore. Later on there were a few other people mudlarking, but no-one shouted at me this time!

I walked from the New Crane Stairs to Wapping pier and then overshot the stairs, and panicked that I had read the tide times wrong and that the water had engulfed them. (I hadn't, just walked past them.) The stairs with no lower steps started gushing water so I had to jump the stream there.

Finds weren’t plentiful and I didn't stay until low tide as I was cold and the light was fading.

I did find a nice sherd with a child holding a sprig of something though. I also like the sherd with a tree on it.

Also, what I initially thought was part of a glass bottle turned out to be a glass Exide battery case! It would have contained acid for a battery and is likely to be from the 1930s to 1950s. It may have looked like this originally: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/156007794819

A piece of coral was an interesting find. Coral isn’t native to the Thames, so it’s likely it was used as ballast on a ship, transported from warmer waters, such as the Carribean.

The “warranted ironstone” sherd is again likely to be from John Edwards. https://www.thepotteries.org/allpotters/374.htm

A piece of mochaware.



(You need a permit to search or mudlark on the Thames foreshore.)

I climbed over the locked gate, as it was getting dark and the tide was coming in. It then started raining when I was on the foreshore. Holding my torch, my umbrella, and my finds bag while poking at things proved a bit difficult, so I ended up not staying that long. I also seemed to have some girls shouting at me - apparently I was holding my umbrella wrongly? Or something like that. But it's hard to hold an umbrella when you're holding so much else and bending over a lot to look at things. Not a fun time on the foreshore really.

I picked up a pipe and a couple of pieces of pottery in desperation, to make it feel like getting wet and getting shouted at and climbing over gates was worthwhile. I found an octopus!

Climbing back over the gate I find a bit more difficult, I am not very flexible, and the gate is wet so I got even more wet.



(You need a permit to search or mudlark on the Thames foreshore.)

On Sunday morning, I went to Putney, as it was somewhere I hadn’t mudlarked before. I tried going down the Brewhouse Slipway, but it was too muddy. I then found the steps next to Putney Bridge, which were also muddy, but there was a handrail to hold onto for the top steps at least, so I made my way down slowly. The foreshore was covered in silt, as the tide must have started receding before the Uber boats started running again.

I made my way around the mud and the streams of water, and got to the river’s edge. I heard bagpipes being played. It was Remembrance Sunday, so I suspected they were coming from the church just above.

Other people on the foreshore included a person metal detecting, and a person who told me that it was muddy the way they came, and I told them that I’d found a Bovril jar.

At one point I was stood between the river and a large stream bit, as if I was on an island, and even though I knew the tide times and knew the water was still going out, I wasn’t sure I felt that safe, so turned around.

I didn’t take home:

1. A pink iPhone, smashed up, no screen, underneath Putney Bridge.

2. Hindu offerings, a collection of them washed up together.





I walked underneath the bridge and then came across some gates that had warning signs that said lights flash and that there could be sewer outfalls without warning. I walked quickly past, lights were not flashing.

Things I found:

1. A plastic frog head. I think it was a real animal to start with, so was glad to find it wasn’t!

2. A bracelet, perhaps?

3. Glass that says “blis” on it. Probably Chablis, but I like to imagine I found "bliss"

4. Glass that was part of an R White’s bottle.








More things:

1. A Bovril jar! Very excited by this one. It’s not one of the oldest types of Bovril jars as it doesn’t have a long neck, but it does have “oz” on it, so it’s certainly not recent.

2. Barrett & Elers bottle fragment

The “B&” were visible on this fragment, but the symbol on it is more of the giveaway - it’s of a vulcanite bottle stopper! The company was registered in 1897 and Henry Barrett invented this type of bottle stopper in 1872.

An advert from 1883: https://boroughphotos.org/lambeth/advert-barrett-elers-london/

–

3. Solo bottle fragment

On the bottom of the bottle it says “Property of Solo B”. The Solo Bottling Company were based at 10 Whitcher Place, NW1. Using 1940s - 1960s OS Maps, it says “Mineral Water Bottling Works” at this address. Whitcher Place does still exist but where this building was located is now UCL student halls.

From a listing of a 1954 receipt on eBay, I've found that Solo Bottling Company were linked to Solo Orchards, who made orange juice and other drinks.

There are various adverts from Solo Orchards, such as “ah! oh! SOLO” from 1948, and eBay also has a beer mat for sparkling orange listed.

Solo Orchards were taken over by Idris in 1960.

So the bottle I found could have contained sparkling orange from Solo Orchards, and is likely to be from the 1940s or 1950s.

1954 receipt:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/167796598399

1948 advert:
https://flic.kr/p/2fFCAWU

Sparkling orange beer mat:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/306036568891

--

After that, I continued along the river, through Wandsworth Park, and past Church Draw Dock (another place to mudlark) and a heron, and onwards, over Battersea Bridge, and past the sphinx benches, and then over Vauxhall Bridge, and I stopped my walk there. I walked about 11 miles that day.

(You need a permit to search or mudlark on the Thames foreshore.)