Short Stuff: What's a mudlarker? | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. hey and welcome to the short stuff I'm. Josh there's Chuck we got our clam. Diggers on and uh we're ready to go to. do a little mud lking which just happens. to be the subject of this short stuff. have you ever heard of this. term I want to say yes but sometimes my. brain makes up memories just to be cool. okay uh I'm not sure I would assume the. emology I didn't look it up cuz I just.

assumed that mud lking was just having a. lark in the. mudh it's got to be it. right or maybe you flitter about from. one place to another like a lark in the. mud okay I like a Bo can we can we both. win like a soccer game sure I love it I. love it uh mud lking is the thing that. we're talking about that it's it's a. term you probably hear in England more. readily and specifically even maybe. London uh originate in the 18th or 19th.

century and uh back then it was. basically when U people with a lesser. means would walk along the the mud banks. at low tide of the river Tims it's Tims. right Tams themes themes yeah the themes. and collect stuff to try and sell yeah. everything from little bits of rope to. coins if they were lucky anything. somebody would buy that's how some.

people actually supported themselves in. the 19th century um fast forward to. today I'm guessing starting around the. 70s maybe the. 80s now it's just a Pastime I don't. think anybody supports thems mudlarking. any longer it's just a hobby akin to. people who um are Beach comers with. metal detectors on the beach or like. magnet fishing yes similar to that we. actually did a short stuff on that. remember that yeah um this is like that.

but there are definite nuances that. distinguish it from either one of those. two things yeah and the reason why this. is um become a Pastime or I guess sort. of a hobby now on the Tims is because. the Tims was a garbage Dumping Ground. for many many years uh people would just. um you know we did our thing on New York. City trash and how previous to trash. collection people would just dump it on. the sidewalks and in the in the rivers. there in New York uh they did the same. thing in London and it was a junky nasty.

polluted river uh until about you know. 60 something years ago when they took. great great efforts to really clean up. that River and now apparently um at. least as far as Urban Rivers goes it's. one of the cleanest ones right um but. there is still because that happened for. so many years and because so much. happened in London over those years uh. there's just you know thousands of years. of uh potential gold and sometimes real. gold.

uh in those Muddy Banks yeah because a. lot of people have lived densely in the. London area on the Ts for like you said. multiple thousands of years um so. there's just a lot of stuff there that. separates the TS in and of itself from. other rivers but one of the other things. that really makes the temp so great for. mud larking is the title action that it. goes through every day four times a day. two high tides two low tides are so. pronounced that when low tide goes out.

it exposes a tremendous amount of the. temps to open air for people to walk. around and look for stuff that's part. one the other part is that when the tide. comes back in it comes back in with such. force that it actually can scour the. river bottom deposit stuff uh up on what. will soon be the shore at low tide and. then when the water goes back out there. you go Presto something that was thrown. in the river 500 years ago is now at. your feet mud lker.

that's right and uh if you remember. actually I don't know if this is going. to come out before that with how our. publishing works but there's a thing. that we either discussed or will discuss. in our no I think it's already out. actually our episode on the saluran. hypothesis it is that came out today and. that is the fact that something stuck. down in mud can survive in better shape. much much longer than something. subjected to the forces of uh wind and. erosion and things like that so a lot of. the stuff that these muders which you're. finding in the mud on the Tims is in.

great shape yeah for sure I mean like. really really old stuff I saw somebody. who found a tutor shoe and it was in. such great shape that you could see. where like the person wearing it their. heel or like the side of their uh big. toe had like shaped the shoe around it. that those Impressions were still there. they had a corn or maybe even a bunion. if you're a lucky mud lker and you find. a tutor shoe you should do a shorty on.

corns and bunions sure all right so if. you are in England and you want to do. this uh before the break we should tell. you that you do need a permit uh you. have to get a permit from the port of. London Authority uh apparently it takes. about a month or longer and will cost. you about about about 35 quid and you. will get a standard license to dig about. 3 in deep you can't go in there with. your with your shovel or your back ho. and dig like six8 feet down you just. can't do that uh you want to not disturb.

the the Tims that much they're trying to. protect that thing so you can go about 3. inches down okay well let's take a uh a. break and we'll come back and talk about. some amazing stuff that people have. found. [Music].

[Applause]. all right Chuck you talked about um. digging maybe three inches down tops. I've seen there's some places where you. can't dig at all but you can pick stuff. up if it's sitting on the surface of the. mud bank right mhm the foreshore is what. they call it um but there are other. parts along the TS where you can't even. go they're protected like cultural sites. um the Tower of London you can't uh. mudlark along there's a a Roman dock.

area that was later developed by Alfred. the Great in the 700s and that was later. used by Charles II to survey the damage. of the Great Fire of London in 1666. called Queen. height I don't know if I got that right. or not but that's how it's think so. that's how it's spelled at least if. you're an American that's what you would. say if you saw this word spelled out. like this am I getting that across I. think so okay um it's just such a. cultural treasure and and archaeologic s.

essentially if they're like don't even. go near this that's right uh but let's. say my friend you're muding there on the. Tims you pull something out and you're. like ho ho ho this might be worth a a. well. treasure what would you do with that. item I would go on eBay and sell it. right but you can't do. that uh well let's see what else can I. do I would hide it under my bed for a. decade until the heat went down no.

that's not what you're going to do. either what you're supposed to do they. have laws in England that basically said. like these treasure laws where hey if. you find something like that something. from Antiquity that's worth something. that belongs to the people of England my. friend and you have to go to the finds. liaison officer and you have to give it. to them and they have will help you. identify and determine what that is and. what it's worth and help you sell it uh. no no no they have to record it in their.

portable Antiquities scheme uh which is. basically a British museum project that. just keeps track of all that stuff and. then finally uh if it does have value a. museum um has the right to buy that and. you could potentially be compensated for. that sure and then if they're like this. is totally valueless get this out of our. face you get to. keepay sure if you can find a chump who. wants this extraordinarily common thing. apparently clay pipes from like the 16th.

century are a dime a dozen in the temps. nothing yeah and the reason why I mean. you look at these things you're like. that seems like that's a pretty cool. archaeological find it's not because uh. at the time starting from about the. 1500s onward they were essentially. treated like cigarette butts are today. like you you just finished using the. pipe and you just throw it like you just. threw it out every use from yes from. what I sawf maybe a couple of uses. whenever you got tired of tearing it. around okay and probably I guess having.

formerly smoked a pipe at two separate. times in my life right um I would say. that you probably tossed it when it. started to get gummed up with um like. tar yeah yeah yeah that makes sense I. think they had pretty little thin stem. so probably got gunked up pretty quick. probably so um before we get on to what. we really want to talk about which is. some of the cool stuff they found in the. Tims uh we should say to be careful this. something you want to get into uh that. title action is pretty severe it can. come in pretty quickly and sometimes.

you're just so into what you're doing. out there in the mud that you might look. up and be like oh crud I'm now stranded. here uh and the water is coming at me. and there have been people that had to. been rescued that are mudlarking out. there because the water's coming at them. yeah um some other hazards are you can. slip on rocks because they're wet and. covered in algae so you want to be. careful walking around you also want to. wear gloves you want to wear boots you. do not want to wear clam diggers like I. said you want kind of keep your skin.

covered as best as possible because. there's all sorts of um communicable. diseases you can catch still by digging. around on the temp's foreshore um one of. them is called Wheels. disease uh and it is transmitted through. water via rat urine or it's transmitted. from rat urine via water either way rat. urine is involved and you're getting a. disease from it you don't want that I'm. surprised there are rats in. London. yeah what else well I think think we. should talk about some of the things.

they found cuz you know we could go on. and on about these I just picked out a. few I don't know if you found any other. ones MH uh but for my money I would love. to talk about the doves press type face. or the doves type or doves Roman uh. because it was was an actual type face. that was found and recovered from the. Tims a a long lost forgotten well not. forgotten but a long lost type face uh. from this company called The dobes Press. uh and it was co-owned in uh I believe.

it was uh the early 20th century it was. a guy guy named TJ Cobden Sanderson and. Emme Walker and apparently they uh. dissolved their partnership eventually. the Press closed in 1917 when they were. dissolving the partnership they came up. with an agreement where uh s Cobden. Sanderson was like that type face is. mine this is what we print all our stuff. in um when I die then you can have it.

I'm assuming he was older but I'm not. sure why Walker would agree to that. unless uh CS was a little closer to. death but at any rate that was what. happened um the FI after the final. publication uh CS apparently it just did. not go down well between them and he. said I bequeath the font to the bed of. the Tims and over 170. trips through these metal molds into the. river yeah 200,000 pieces he he threw. the entire proprietary type face into.

the temps and there were no other copies. of it so this beautiful type face that. there are plenty of examples of because. this publishing house that used it was. around for a while um it was just lost. forever and that really got in the craw. of a modern designer named Robert Green. who based on examples of it from like. books or something like that created a. digitized version of it but he was like. this can be better and I'm not sure if. he got into mod larking or to find these.

um type uh I'm not sure what you call. them the Little D that you would. actually use to on the printing press um. the molds the molds um yeah or if if uh. he ran across muders who' found him or. something but he became uh I you could. probably say obsessed with finding these. original molds and did he launched like. some uh Expeditions on the temps to find. them and came up with like 150 or so of. them and used them to really drive home.

the digitized version of dov's type that. he created yeah you know what he did in. 2014 he got the Port Authority uh Port. of London authorities dive team to go. get this stuff yeah pretty neat and they. did it and now we have dov's Roman again. and I'm as you know uh I'm a Times New. Roman guy we each have our fonts that we. print our various stuff in and I've. always been a Times New Roman guy but. boy this dov's Roman is beautiful yeah I. love it give me calri or give me.

death uh there's more things that people. have found that was the coolest story so. uh you can just go check it out and and. look up more things that have been found. mudlarking a lot of cool old things from. Antiquity yep very cool and if this uh. you got the mud lking bug and you go to. London make sure you get a permit. first and uh I guess since we talked. about permits that means short stuffs. out stuff you should know is a. production of heart radio for more.

podcasts my heart radio visit the ihart. radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you. listen to your favorite shows. [Music].