10 Most Spectacular Objects Pulled from the Thames

The River Thames is the whole reason that London exists. Running through the city’s center, it has provided water and the opportunity to trade for millennia. But it turns out people have lived beside its banks for far longer than there has been a city there. Only now are we beginning to find out the full story of the river thanks to objects that are being retrieved from its waters. A new exhibition at the London Museum called “Secrets of the Thames” brings together some of the most spectacular finds from the river.

So, if you are ever lucky enough to get a license that allows you to join the mudlarks on the foreshore of the Thames, these are 10 things that might be waiting for you to pick up.

Related: Top 10 Greatest Archaeological Restorations

10 Waterloo Helmet

In 1868, the River Thames near Waterloo Bridge was being dredged to keep the water there navigable when one of the workers spotted a strange object in the ooze that was being pulled up. Once cleaned, it became clear that it was an important and ancient artifact. The Waterloo Helmet had been found.

The object resembled the stereotypical (and inaccurate) image of a Viking helmet with two horns protruding. It is made from bronze sheets riveted together and decorated with a flowing, hammered pattern. From the materials and the way it is decorated, it can be dated back to around 150-50 BC.

The purpose of the “helmet” is less clear. If anyone had worn it into battle, they would have been disappointed with the level of protection it offered—even the lightest blow would have damaged it or pierced the skull underneath. It is also oddly small and so could not have been easily worn. Likely, it was a ceremonial object and was placed into the Thames as a gift to the divine, known as a votive offering.^[1]

9 Gold Rings

One of the rarest and most exciting mudlarking finds must be spotting the glint of gold among the detritus on the river foreshore. Hundreds of gold rings have been found in the Thames over the years. This leads to questions about how these precious objects ended up in the water? Were people careless, or were they throwing them in on purpose?

Many of the rings were clearly romantic gifts. Known as posy rings, they date from the 13th century onward. They usually have a hidden message engraved onto the inside of the ring where only the giver and the wearer would know it was there. These have been found written in English, French, and Latin. One example with the message on the outside was found in the Thames, which says, in Medieval French, “For Love, So Sweet.”

So many have turned up in the river that some think they were placed there by lovers who wished the love the rings represented to be secure under the water. Others think they may have been hurled in by disappointed lovers after a break-up.^[2]

8 Axeheads

For millennia, the best material for making tools was stone. Flakes of flint were used for scraping while larger, knapped objects that functioned as knives and axeheads were made. Flint is relatively common in England, but people in the Stone Age occasionally worked with more exotic materials.

One axehead dating from 4000 BC was found in the Thames and was made from a green stone known as jadeite, which was not native to England. The stone it was made from must have been mined in Italy, and it reveals a trade network that operated thousands of years ago. Not only was the stone beautiful, but it had also been painstakingly polished for hundreds of hours to make it flawlessly smooth. This was a high-status object – and was clearly never meant to be used as an axe.

The axe must have been owned as an object that commanded respect. That it ended up in the Thames shows that this expensive item was probably placed in the river deliberately as part of some ritual.^[3]

7 Ancient Skulls

It is not only objects made by humans that end up in the river. Sometimes, the humans end up there too. It is tragically true that mudlarks occasionally stumble on the bodies of people who have committed suicide by drowning in the Thames. It is also true that human bones can be found on the foreshore—and sometimes, they are among the most ancient human remains found in Britain.

In 2019, part of the skull of a man was picked up from the riverbank. Human skulls have been found dating from the Roman, Saxon, and Medieval periods, but there was something special about this one. Radiocarbon dating showed it belonged to someone who lived 5,600 years ago.

The original owner of the skull was likely a farmer who worked the land around the Thames in the Neolithic Period. These people were the first to call London home, though they would not have called it London.^[4]

6 Hadrian’s Head

The Romans loved a statue. Museums around the world are full of gorgeous marble busts, friezes, and larger-than-life-sized sculptures. However, Bronze statues, also popular in antiquity, are far rarer. This is because bronze can be melted down again and cast into various other things when the statue is no longer wanted. In 1834, a bronze head of a statue modeled on the Roman Emperor Hadrian was pulled out of the Thames near London Bridge.

Londinium was the capital city of Roman Britain, and Roman finds are not uncommon, given that it was a major settlement for centuries. Nor is it unexpected that there would have been a statue of Hadrian in London. He visited Britain in his many travels and ordered the construction of his famous wall in the north of the country. But how did the head end in the Thames?

We do know that when an unpopular emperor was deposed, his statues were often pulled down, but Hadrian was and remained fairly popular. The head was fairly crudely lopped off its statue, so it was probably taken off by someone with anti-Roman feelings and thrown in the river as an insult.^[5]

5 Seax of Beagnoth

London remained an important settlement during the Anglo-Saxon period after the Romans left Britain. However, the Roman city was largely abandoned. We know there were wealthy and powerful Anglo-Saxons in the area – because we found one of their swords.

In 1857, a laborer called Henry J. Briggs was digging in one of the estuary sites of the Thames when he pulled up an Anglo-Saxon seax. The seax was a single-edged weapon about the size of a dagger or short sword and was a typical shape used by the Anglo-Saxons. This example of a seax was particularly impressive as it had complex decoration and a runic inscription, which was written with lengths of silver and copper.

The first inscription is the entire alphabet of runes, which might seem odd. Runes were often employed for magical purposes, so a blade with all the runes might be thought extra-enchanted. The second inscription gives the sword its name as it spells out Beagnoth—probably the name of the sword’s first owner or the person who made it.^[6]

4 Roman Lamp

You can mudlark on the Thames for years, finding only interesting scraps of historical artifacts, but finding significant objects is a matter of luck. One mudlark was incredibly lucky when he went down on the banks of the river one lunchtime and happened to spot what proved to be a perfectly preserved Roman oil lamp made in the 4th or 5th century. It was so perfect that his first thought was to throw it away because it looked like a modern replica.

The lamp is decorated with a leaping lion and various other symbols. Given the imagery on it, the lamp was made in North Africa before being imported to Britain. In the 5th century, the Roman Empire was beginning to collapse in the west, so the lamp was probably traded before the political turmoil of this period.^[7]

3 Doves Type

For years, mudlarkers around Hammersmith Bridge discovered little pieces of metal marked with letters that were clearly used in printing. It was strange that so many were found in one place. Had a whole printing press fallen into the Thames? No, but someone had been throwing the metal type into the river.

Around 1900, the Doves Press was set up by Thomas Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker. Together, they create a series of new typefaces they would use to print their books. They were beautiful examples modeled on 15th-century lettering. Unfortunately, the partnership behind the business was less harmonious, and arguments broke out about who owned the type. It was finally agreed that Cobden-Sanderson could use the type for the rest of his life, but then ownership would transfer to Walker. Cobden-Sanderson was not happy with even this—so he began to get rid of the type.

Each night, as he walked across Hammersmith Bridge, he would dump a load of the type into the water. Over 170 trips, he rid himself of the entire type, sure it could never be used again. In this, he was wrong, as enough has been recovered by mudlarks to recreate the lost Doves Type again.^[8]

2 1970s Mug?

One of the worst fears of a mudlark is that you might find something important but not recognize that it is something you should pick up. You can’t take everything you find; there’s simply too much on the foreshore, so you must be selective. I once almost left a Roman tile behind because I did not recognize the intricate pattern marked on it. Had I stumbled on a brown mug, I would have been tempted to leave it behind because it looked so modern. I might have thought, “This is a 1970s brown mug.”

Luckily, one mudlark was less judgemental than I was. When they collected the brown mug, they recognized it as important and took it to archaeologists to have it assessed. Despite its modernist style and perfect surface, the piece turned out to be a Roman wine cup that was at least 1,800 years old. When the cup was new, it would have had a second handle opposite the first.

It is rare for such a large piece of ceramic to be found nearly intact on the foreshore, as with each tide, objects are washed around by the water and collide with the rocks on the riverbed.^[9]

1 Battersea Shield

When building bridges across the Thames in the Victorian period, it was common to dredge up the riverbed to ensure there was nothing in the way—and this dredging pulled up large numbers of artifacts. One of the largest and most important objects ever found in the Thames was pulled up this way in 1857.

The Battersea Shield is the almost complete bronze covering of a shield made around the 2nd century BC. There would once have been a wooden shield attached behind it, but it rotted away long ago. On the front of the shield are three circles filled with curving decoration beaten out of the bronze. There are also smaller circles once filled with red enamel that would have glinted in the sun, though the enamel is broken today [LINK 10].

The shield must have been one of the most impressive items seen by people at the time it was made. And it was meant to impress because it would not have offered much protection in battle. Nor does it seem to have ever been used in battle, as there is no damage. It is most likely that the shield was just for ceremonial use and was eventually given to the river as an offering to the gods.^[10]