Lara Maiklem

Mudlarking is the practice of scavenging river banks looking for treasures hidden in the mud and Lara Maiklem has spent nearly 20 years doing exactly this mostly along the River Thames. She started river walking as a way to relax and over time started to become increasingly curious about the wide variety of things she found on her walks.

Often these tiny discoveries yielded incredible history and stories behind them. As she began to document and share her discoveries she discovered there was a surprisingly large community of people who were fascinated by her findings and the practice of mudlarking.

This ultimately led Bloomsbury Books (famous for the Harry Potter series) to publish her first book appropriately titled, Mudlarking. Launched earlier in August 2019, the book has shot to Number 2 on the Sunday Times Bestseller list as well as being named the BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week.

 

Lara’s TEDx Talk

Mudlarking: Lost & Found On The River Thames

What is ‘mudlarking’, and what’s lurking in the gloopy mud of the Thames. Lara Maiklem introduces her rather unusual pastime and reveals some of the weird and wonderful objects she’s found in more than 15 years of searching the Thames foreshore.