Roman Tegula

Tegula is the twin of Imbrex the two types of tile which made up the Roman roof, a design nicked from the Greeks and still in use in Rome today.

I presume most of the red tiles you see on the Thames foreshore are medieval and they certainly are if they have one or two holes in them. But perhaps I'm wrong and many of the tile pieces are Roman for me it's just impossible to differentiate.

The Thames foreshore is littered with tiles. 

If the tile has a return like the one below it and it is found where Roman London lay, it may be a Roman tegula. 

Tom's mudlarking find Roman Tegula. 

This find was one of Florida Tom's gifts to me. Later that day I found another. Funny how you spot things once their image and identity is imprinted in your brain. 

Roman Londinium superimposed over modern London (Romanobritain.org)

The tegulae were laid in overlapping fashion. Some were just plain flat tiles, others had raised edges on each side (like the ones I've found) preventing the water from seeping between the join and channeling the water to the bottom of the tile. Later tegulae were a v shape whereby the edges converged slightly each becoming a funnel which slotted into the one below forming a continuous channel. 

The imbrex were semi circular and were place over the joins between tegulae. If well laid the result was a fully waterproof roof. 

tegula (a) imbrex (b) (wiki)

The roofing area was usually surrounded by antefixa and these were frequently decorated, now that would be a nice find. 

Roman Roof with Antefixa (Grahams Potted History) 

A few more mudlarking finds & the Estuary Exhibition

I had serious post holiday blues. After a few weeks in the country I was finding it difficult to accommodate ubiquitous concrete, endless coppices of different sized buildings healed into every patch of land, roads scarred with pot holes and tarmac tracks and the absence of big skies. A bit of Thames therapy was what I needed. I went down a couple of times, mainly to collect pottery for mosaic making. Few notable finds. My favourite is this piece of plate rim with apt snatch of poetry 'how I love to calmly muse..such an hour as this'. 

Mudlarking Find 'how I love to calmly muse such an hour of this'

Liked this romanticised river summer scene decorating the bottom of a bowl.

Mudlarking Find Transferware, bottom of small bowl.

A sucker for writing on pottery pleased to find T Andrews with its inverted N. The shard is hand sized and slightly curved. Nothing on the net on this one, so haven't a clue about its date. There are a few inclusions in the clay. Later I spotted a tile piece with 'rews' imprinted amongst the pottery of my blog header, which I would have found at least 18 months ago, perhaps from the same vessel? 

Mudlarking Find: T Andrews

This time did pick up one of the Raeran pottery bases I quite frequently spot, with its distinctive thumbed decoration and colour. The bottom of the  jug bulge seems far larger and thinner than usual, so perhaps I'm wrong. 

Mudlarking Find: base of Raeren ?drinking mug

Raeren Driking mug 1481 - 1610 (Museum of London) 

Walked through the city to Bank and caught the DLR which winds its way through the juxtaposition of council blocks and corporate opulence to Canary Wharf and meandered through the interesting but rather soulless 80's docklands redevelopment to the Museum of London Docklands. I'd be meaning to visit their Estuary Exhibition for ages. If like me you are rather drawn to landscapes on the margin,  with iron hulks of industrial pasts and worn resorts or just fascinated by the Thames you'll love this. The Museum of London's says 

Estuary brings together the work of 12 artists who have been inspired by the outer limits of the Thames where the river becomes the sea. The exhibition marks the 10th anniversary of the Museum of London Docklands, a converted Georgian warehouse on West India Quay. 

With its dramatic landscape – desolate mudflats and saltmarshes, vast open skies, container ports, power stations and seaside resorts – the Estuary has long been a rich source of inspiration for artists and writers. Through film, photography, painting and printmaking, the contemporary artists featured in this exhibition offer new insight into this often overlooked, yet utterly compelling, environment and the people that live and work there.

I particularly liked John Smith's Turner inspired film of the changing sea set against the sound of the waves breaking on the beach (Horizon (Five Pounds a Belgian) an interview with Smith about this work can be found here. Another favourite was the speeded up film of the Thames from the Sea to the City with old men of the Thames animated in their silent tales of their river and the bright fairground of Canvey Island peeking over its grey walled defence. Loved Bow Gamelan Ensemble brilliant performance on Rainham barges, as they are slowly submerged by the Thames tide. All very inspiring it made me want to 'do art' rather than spend my time in cerebral research about my Thames  finds - but sometimes these thoughts are best kept as thoughts as the realisation is much harder and the result often disappointing - we'll see. 

Finds from last month's midnight mudlark

Another evening mudlark on a balmy summer's evening after work. Met up again with London Mudlark and picnicked overlooking the Thames as we waited for the tide to go out. It's strange being down there on a weekday evening. The noise of city workers drinking interrupted our expected peace. As usual very impressed with London Mudlark's finds which you can find on her site here. 

I must say I didn't have the concentration or perseverance on this trip. At times I was certainly more interested in savouring the views and cracking open the bottle of beer I'd brought along. 

As the sun was setting we were surprised to be joined by a whole determined gang of no messing mudlarkers. They were drawn by the lowest tide of the year, we hadn't realised it was going to be so low. Loads of pipes were suddenly exposed, so I scooped up several with long stems. According to my pipe identification chart most of these are Georgian from around 1770, which is incredible as they look spanking new. You can find a previous post on clay pipes here.

Mudlarking Finds. Clay Pipes from around 1770s. 

A large section of what I presume is a German stoneware mineral water bottle, probably from the 19th Century. 

Mudlarking Find: Probably German Stoneware Mineral Water Bottle ca. 1800

I picked up some usual pins. The first is 4.5cam long and has an unusually large head and unpointy end, the others are thicker than the average Thames pin.  A previous post on pins can be found  here.

Mudlarking Finds: Pins 14th - 17th Century. 

A particularly large section of metropolitan slipware and a star design spotted by London Mudlark. A previous post on slipware can be found here.

Mudlarking Finds: Metropolitan Slipware probably 17th - 18th Century 

Surrey/Hampshire border ware 1580-1800 (Museum of London) 

Two interesting large pottery shards both painted over the glaze, I think this is called enamel.  The first I suspect is Georgian, the second with back and front shots is porcelain and possibly Japanese. I can't find anything similar on the net. 

Mudlarking Find. Hand painted pottery shard. 

Another Midnight Mudlark

Sadly I've had to return to pretty much full time work, so very little time to mudlark and no time to blog, so I suspect posts will be far and few between. However  I did manage to meet up with London Mudlark last night, to catch the lowest Thames tide of the year. This time we weren't the only ones down there and there were several head torched mudlarkers, each stooped over their individual pool of light, you can just make them out dotted along the foreshore in this rather poor picture below. It will take a while for me to post my finds, but I expect London Mudlark will be posting hers soon and she found some delights, which you'll be able to see shortly here https://www.facebook.com/LondonMudlark 

Midnight Mudlarking

More Low Tide Mudlarking

I always cycle to work and as I said goodbye my husband asked me where my bike was, I’d forgotten to tell him I’d taken the morning off work to go mudlarking. Having been down for the midnight mudlark the night before, ‘your obsessed’ were his parting words, but one more mudlark during these midsummer low tides was not to be missed. 

As I descended the stairs to the Thames I spotted a woman I recognised,  Hilary Bravo who I follow on pinterest, an artist who makes jewelry from her mudlarking finds, which you can see here.  It was lovely to meet her out of that social networking world and a coincidence as I’d arranged to meet Tania Covo, another artist who makes fabulous jewelry from her Thames pottery finds, you can see her work on her facebook page here.

I did a bit of mudlarking London Mudlark style, where the rewards are usually small and metal and find of the day has to be this minuscule spoon at the end of a hollow 4cm silver arm with a hole for attaching at one end. I didn’t have a clue what it was. I assumed it was part of something larger but expert mudlarker Mackie put me right and immediately identified it as a ear scoop the equivalent of today's cotton buds. No idea what period it's from, could be anything from 15th C to the Victorian period. 

Mudlarking Find: Silver Ear Scoop

Mackie said he thought it was silver so I later looked up the treasure act, which requires you to report items (apart from coins) which are 300+ years old and silver, presumably including this little thing if it's that old. I'll certainly be taking this find down to the Museum of London when I finally get a slot. 

Also found a couple of lead cloth seals, these ones are probably 19th Century and a clay marble, only my second. 

Mudlarking Finds: Clay Marble and lead cloth seals 

Ended the morning with lunch at the Tate with the 'Ladies who Mudlark' , after which we pored over and delighted in each others finds. Again struck by how this mudlarking business takes you to places off the beaten track you never would have visited and lovely people you never would have met. 

Midnight Mudlarking

A midnight mudlark -  Richard gave us the idea as we left the foreshore last Sunday and he was right the tides were super low at night an amazing 0.1m. I was ridiculously excited as the bus trundled down to the Thames. I loved the madness of it. Met up with London Mudlark of facebook fame and we made our way down to the shore. 

I had visions of torch lit mudlarkers scouring large stretches of river bed that the Thames usually hides. But surprise surprise we were the only ones daft enough to go down there.

The contrast between the smooth bricked modern city above and the rubble and wooden stumps of its past where we scrabble about was somehow heightened in the dusky light. Later the shore was bathed in city neon so navigating our way was easy. 

Head torches and bike lights lit up circles of shore for us to examine. Low tide came and went and still I'd hardly found a thing. It was only after midnight that my luck turned and I glimpsed a few pieces of choice pottery. But find of the day must be this small bit of flint.  I have no idea how old these human workings are or what they were for, I hope  the Museum of London will be able to help me out. 

Mudlarking Find:  Flint Fossil

Or are they as Jim suggests below part of a sea urchin fossil? 

Sea Urchin Fossil (tesswyatt.blogspot) 

This time I've had very little luck in identifying my finds on the net. I doubt this first one is very old,  possibly Victorian. Once I see design in relief it's in my bag. 

Mudlarking Find: Cream pottery with brown glaze and relief flowers

Rather confused by this next piece. I presume it's a pot rim with the remains of handle protruding, possibly from a skillet. Quite well made with spots of green glaze. What confused us was the indentation  on the inside, which made us wonder whether it fed a spout. If it had a function was it to release steam into the handle? 

Mudlarking Find, pot rim with handle possibly from 16th C. 

Skillet 16th Century Ashmolean Museum Oxford 

Lastly a bit of delft with a thin line drawing, I suspect from a delft tile.

Mudlarking Find: Possible piece of delft tile 18th C. 

London Delft Tile circa 1750 (Martyn Edgell) 

Half way through I took a break from mudlarking and walked a long way along the shore, as far as I could go  to  try and capture the speed of the tide going out. The reflected lights distract from the rip of the tide somewhat, but you can catch it if you look carefully. 

and then the red moon rising south of Tower Bridge, as party boat after party boat passed by with drunken Londoners shouting and singing their hearts out.  

An Evening Mudlark

I've been keeping my eye on the tide tables and had spotted that the lowest tides of the year seem to be this week, coinciding with the summer solstice. Last night there was an amazing 0.5m,  just too low to resist. 

My first evening mudlark - I was quite excited.  As I trotted down the road conscious that most other people were winding down, sorting out their evening meal before settling down to Sunday telly, quietly preparing for the working week ahead. 

Grey clouds crowded the sky. It was surprisingly gloomy not quite the midsummer mudlark I'd envisaged. As I descended the steps I was rewarded with a huge stretch of exposed shore with two hours still to go before low tide. 

I saw Lara's silhouette down the shore and made my way over for our arranged mudlarking meet.  It was fun to share stories and great to have some Lara mudlarking tips. 

It was such a productive trip that I can't decide which is my find of the day, so I'll start off with my top four. The first is Lara's favourite, a roman or medieval tile with a small hoof print, not sure if it's a piglet, lamb or kid. After tiles were cut out and shaped they were laid out to dry before firing, which is when a few collected prints from mice, dogs or livestock. 

Mudlarking Find: Roman or Medieval Tile with hoof print

I was delighted with my first whole Bellamine face, there seem to be endless versions. This one is rather scary bearing his teeth through a distorted mouth, with bags under his strange poppy out eyes but with a rather refined nose, as my good friend Gerry later pointed out. 

Mudlarking Find: Bellamine face 1550- 1700

Bartmann Jug 1551 - 1700 (Museum of London) 

I came across what I've been hoping to find since I started mudlarking, a 7cm long wild boar's tusk. The black doesn't match the pictures of white tusks I've found on the net, perhaps the enamel has worn off, unsure of the other tooth's origin - any ideas?

Mudlarking finds: Mystery tooth & wild boar tusk.

My last find of the day is a small 1.5cm lead cloth seal. I've wanted to find one of these for ages so made up even through the imprints are very worn on one side. Lara's top tip is smear with olive oil to bring out the design. I'm hoping that now I've got my eye in for these I'll find more on future trips.

Mudlarking Find: Lead Cloth Seal 1200-  1800s. 

As ever a handful of pottery made its way into my bag. These are my favourite pieces, from left to right clockwise, hand painted tea bowl, early transferred pearlware, flow blue and green transferware. The whole lot probably spans from around 1760 - 1900s. 

Mudlarking Finds: pottery shards. 

Lara will be posting her finds shortly on her site here. Our next planned mudlark is one with a difference and will definitely  be one to remember - watch this space!