Armchair Historians

Jason Sandy: How A Riverbed Became The Largest Open-Air Museum In London

• Anne Marie Cannon • Season 4 • Episode 18

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This week’s Rewind episode brings back one of our most memorable conversations—perfect for anyone who’s ever felt that jolt of wonder holding a fragment of the past. Anne Marie sits down with noted mudlark Jason Sandy—member of the Society of Thames Mudlarks, trustee of the Thames Museum Trust, and co-author of Thames Mudlarking: Searching for London’s Lost Treasures—to explore the River Thames as the longest open-air archaeological site in London.

Jason shares how a National Geographic segment sent him down to the foreshore, the thrill of finding a Roman bone hairpin now on display at the Museum of London, the camaraderie (and ethics) of the mudlarking community, and what it was like to metal-detect in the Tower of London’s moat. We also talk permits, recording finds, Totally Thames exhibitions, and why ordinary objects—buttons, pipe stems, combs—tell extraordinary stories.

Highlights

  • What makes London’s tidal Thames uniquely rich for finds
  • From Native American arrowheads to Roman London: Jason’s path to mudlarking
  • The Roman hairpin “holy grail” and donating to the Museum of London
  • How the Society of Thames Mudlarks works (and why there’s a waitlist)
  • Recording artifacts with the Portable Antiquities Scheme
  • Community spotlights: fellow mudlarks, favorite finds, and a life-changing Victoria Cross discovery
  • Behind the scenes: searching the Tower of London moat and what those regimental buttons revealed
  • The vision for a hands-on Thames Museum where visitors can learn on the foreshore

About Our Guest

Jason Sandy is an American-born architect/developer who moved to London in 2007 and discovered mudlarking in 2012. He’s a Society of Thames Mudlarks member, a Thames Museum Trust trustee, and co-author of Thames Mudlarking: Searching for London’s Lost Treasures. He lectures widely, appears on television, and shares finds on Instagram @jasonmudlark.

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Anne Marie Cannon:

Hello, my name is Ann-Marie Cannon, and I'm the host of Armchair Historians. What's your favorite history? Each episode begins with this one question. Our guests come from all walks of life. YouTube celebrities, comedians, historians, even neighbors from the small mountain community that I live in. They're people who love history and get really excited about a particular time, place, or person from our distant or not so distant past. The jumping-off point is the place where they became curious, then entered the rabbit hole into discovery. Fueled by an unrelenting need to know more, we look at history through the filter of other people's eyes. Armchair Historians is a Belgian rabbit production. Stay up to date with us through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Wherever you listen to your podcast, that is where you'll find us. Hello, fellow Armchair Historians. I'd like to start the show by thanking our Patreon and Kofi supporters, including David C, Paul T, Beverly N, Tremors A, Andrew B, Allison, Lauren, and Ruth. Thank you so much. Your support means the world to us. And if you can't support us through Kofi or Patreon, there are other things that you can do to really help the show. One of them is to follow us on social media and join the conversation. Also, you can leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice. And finally, share the podcast with family and friends. In this episode, the third in our Mudlark series, I talked to Jason Sandy, member of the Society of Thames Mudlarks, trustee of the Thames Museum Trust, and co-author of the book Thames Mudlarking, searching for London's Lost Treasures. Jason shares his River Thames journey and talks about the river's history and the fellowship he has found within the Mudlark community. Originally from the United States, Jason is an architect and developer who moved to London in 2007. He discovered mudlarking in 2012 and has contributed to many articles and books on mudlarking as well as lecturing, appearing on national television, and having an active presence on social media. Jason Sandy, welcome to Armchair Historians. Thank you. So excited because I am obsessed with mudlarking and the history behind it. So let's just get right off into the races and talk about what is your favorite history.

Jason Sandy:

So you can tell from my accent that I'm not originally from Britain. I was born in the United States, born and raised in North Carolina. And I kind of grew up hearing about the Elizabethan explorers. Sir Walter Raleigh, Raleigh, North Carolina is obviously named after him. So I always grew up hearing about this interesting British side of history. So when I moved to London 15 years ago, I just became completely absorbed in the history. And unlike America, there's just history all around you, thousands and thousands of years of history. Growing up in America, one of the things that I first started collecting was actually Native American Indian arrowheads. And I absolutely love finding those in plowed fields. So when they would plow the field, we'd go out there the next day just looking for anything that was kind of pulled up by the plows. And I was always really excited to find that. So to find something in the Thames, which is thousands and thousands and thousands of years old, is absolutely mind-boggling. So just that tangible history, that's what I love about mudlarking, and that's my angle on history.

Anne Marie Cannon:

So you started from a young age treasure hunting.

Jason Sandy:

Yes. Yeah. I grew up in the countryside. And so there wasn't much else to do. So I spent a lot of time outdoors, and uh my parents didn't have a TV while I was growing up. So I spent a lot of time in the fields and out in the forest and uh in the lakes surrounding my house.

Anne Marie Cannon:

So when you moved to London, did you know about mudlarking or was this something that you just learned about and then started doing?

Jason Sandy:

So actually, I live along the river. So I'm only two minutes away. And when my kids were much younger, we used to go down there at low tide just because there are a lot of crabs, little eels that kind of swim around, minnows, shrimp, uh, all of this wildlife, ducks, we have a lot of herons that fly along the river as well. So we were just captivated by the natural element of the river. And I had no idea that you could actually find historical artifacts. So my first uh first kind of encounter with mudlarking was I was watching the National Geographic Channel, and there was a guy from Chicago that came to London and met some mudlarks and went treasure hunting along the River Thames. And after one hour, I was absolutely mind-blown at what they were finding along the river at low tide. So that was my first uh kind of introduction to mudlarking, and literally the next weekend I was down on the Thames searching for myself. So when I found that first pipe bowl, I was just really beside myself, knowing that that was 300 years old. That's the oldest thing I'd ever found before.

Anne Marie Cannon:

That was how long ago?

Jason Sandy:

Uh so I started mudlarking 10 years ago, April 2012.

Anne Marie Cannon:

All right. So then you were hocked.

Jason Sandy:

Yeah, they actually call my wife a Thames widow because I'm never at home. I'm always at down along the river, uh, night and day, even though it's just a hobby. Uh I have a full-time job, but uh it's an all-consuming hobby. Once the bug is bitten, you're you're hooked instantly. As I think you found out yourself.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely. I love it. I like I said, I was in London for 10 days and I spent five of them mudlarking. So next time I just want to go to go mudlarking because I I don't want to go to all those other places and be distracted from it is. I have it it's it's a bug. It's it's infectious, and I mean if you're into it, there's certain people that I think take to it, right?

Jason Sandy:

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Then from there one of the things I I've noticed about the mudlark community in London is that people are really friendly, and it's not like they're um competing with each other. It seems like they like to help each other. Some, you know, in different people focus on different artifacts that they're really interested in. So what is your favorite kind of period and artifact to find?

Jason Sandy:

So as a high school student in Virginia, my parents forced me to take Latin, which I was like, this is a dead language. I'm not interested in taking Latin, dad. Why do I need to take Latin? Uh but he had gotten his PhD in classical studies and was all about ancient Greece and ancient Rome. So he wanted to instill that into his two sons. So both my brother and I were forced to take Latin kind of against our will. But that kind of just got me interested about Roman history. And my brother and I did eventually go to Rome on holiday, uh, on vacation, and it was absolutely fabulous. Just it's a living museum. You just walk through the streets, and everything is just so old and ancient. Uh, so coming to London, I was always interested in how London began. And it was actually founded by the Romans in AD 43. So 10 years after Christ died is when London was started by the Romans. So that's tangible connection with that time period, ancient Rome. So to find something uh that's from that time period and to hold it in your hand, knowing that the last person to touch that lived 2,000 years ago, that is just mind-blowing.

Anne Marie Cannon:

So you love the so that's yeah, the Roman history.

Jason Sandy:

Yeah, absolutely. That's uh uh I go to a specific patch of the foreshore which always has Roman artifacts, and I tend to find something Roman there every time.

Anne Marie Cannon:

So Wow. So what's your favorite find?

Jason Sandy:

Well, as you can guess, it's a Roman find. It's actually a a hairpin. So women, a lot of times, even in Japan, wear their hair up in buns and put a pin, a long pin through it to secure the bun in place. And back in the Flavian period, around 60 AD, it was very fashionable to wear your hair in high false curls, and then you would have a large braided, almost like bun uh at the back, and we'd secure that with multiple pins. And the pin that I found has a beautiful figurine carved into it. It's made of bone and it shows a woman. And maybe we can put this on your website so that listeners can actually see that. Yeah. But that's one of my favorite artifacts, and it was actually uh I donated it to the Museum of London, and it's now on permanent display within the museum. So now hundreds, thousands of people can go see it, and it's on display in the general public. So that's the absolute thrill of mudlarking is to find something, rescue that history that would have been washed out to sea eventually, and then have it put on permanent display for everyone to see, enjoy, and to learn from and research.

Anne Marie Cannon:

How long ago did you find that?

Jason Sandy:

So, as it happens, my dad seems to be my lucky charm. And uh he was visiting London, and this was before everyone needed a permit to search even by eye. Uh, so he when I were just walking uh along the the foreshore at low tide, and it was actually a really bad low tide. I think this was back in 2014, and we literally just stumbled upon it and peered down, and it was staring straight up at me uh from the riverbed, and it was just a holy grail moment.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Wow. Just it was it wasn't even like in the mud.

Jason Sandy:

No, it was just washed out, literally staring at me.

Anne Marie Cannon:

That's amazing. You're a member of the Society of Thames mudlarks, and so when did when did that happen? When were you um did you did they approach you or did you approach them?

Jason Sandy:

So in order to get into the society, do you have to put your name on a waiting list? Uh so it's limited to 50 people. That's regulated by the Port of London authority. Uh so it's pretty much somebody either has to give up their uh place or somebody has to unfortunately die in order for new members to get in.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Oh, I didn't know that.

Jason Sandy:

Yeah, so actually over the last uh two to three years, because of COVID, no one's uh been able to join the society because of the cap. Uh fortunately, in September this year, we're allowing eight new members into the society, uh, which is very good. Um and so fortunately I was let in after six years on the waiting list, I was let in back in 2018.

Anne Marie Cannon:

And from what Simon said, you have to have a history of turning things in and uh that are of historically relevant and important. Um, so is that something that you had started doing from the very beginning, or did you do that once you got on the list?

Jason Sandy:

So you start from the very beginning. As a normal permit holder, when you get the permit, it says that anything that's 300 years or older, you have to uh record with the Museum of London. So I have an appointment with the museum, or used to have an appointment with the museum, uh, once every three months just to kind of take in my um older finds, show them, and have them recorded. Now I've worked uh very closely with the Museum of London. It actually taught me how to record the artifacts myself. So I can upload those to the British Museum's website, which is called the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and then it's verified by the finds liaison officer that works at the Museum of London. So fortunately, I can do all of that recording myself. I'm a self-recorder, which is fantastic. Yeah.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Yeah. How often do you go down to the foreshore?

Jason Sandy:

I would say on average it's about once a week. So, as you know from your own experience, it's always kind of tide-dependent. The low tides are typically the really good low tides are every two weeks. So you kind of uh I map out my whole year and kind of put all the key dates in my calendar so I know exactly what I need to plan around to make sure I don't end up meeting friends instead of going down onto the foreshore when it's super low. So I tend to go uh about twice on the super low tides and then I wait every two weeks and then go twice again, but on average it's about once a week.

Anne Marie Cannon:

I always was curious about that. If you lived there, like how often do you go down there?

Jason Sandy:

Yeah, it kind of depends on your work schedule and how close you live to the River Fortune, very close. Uh, so some days I can do two tides, so both the morning and the evening tides. And then the more productive areas are more towards central London, so then I have to travel into central London. But yeah, it kind of depends on how much how much spare time you have. And with two small children, I just didn't have a lot of spare time. But yeah, I I go when I can.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Yeah. You've been doing this for a while, and you co-authored a book.

Jason Sandy:

Why don't you tell us about the book? Yeah, so we, as you mentioned earlier, we have a great community of mudlarks here in London, and we end up spending a lot of time together because we share that common interest of history. Uh, a lot of times I don't even know what other people do. We just chat about what we found that day and what this other person had found and have a proper catch up. So normally we go mudlarking for about four hours and then go to the cafe or to get lunch afterwards or go for breakfast if it's a surly, uh super early morning tide. So, within the book, what I wanted to do is capture the best artifacts that have been found by the whole community of mudlarks. So there's over 50 mudlarks represented within the books, and I kind of show their absolute best finds, and we've organized those so they're kind of chronological and tell the whole story of London just from the artifacts that have been found in the river. So some of the oldest things that we find are uh fossils, which are up to 200 million years old, and then flint tools, which are from Mesolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age. They kind of made those throughout a long period of time. But those two of these are the oldest artifacts that we find in the Thames. Then we go into the Roman period, medieval period, uh, Vikings, London uh had several Viking attacks during about the 9th century, uh, 10th century. And then we move on to the Tudor times, on to the Stuart uh kings and queens and what people wore and lost during that time period, Georgian, Victorian, and then up into the modern day period. But what we're trying to do is tell them the stories not about the kings and queens, but about everyday people, so that we can relate to them. And a lot of the stuff that we find down there is not like precious silver or gold objects. It's more the everyday items, the utilitarian items. And that just really resonates with us now because we can relate to that and see how styles have changed over the years and see how people uh adorn themselves with uh jewelry, with cufflinks, with shoe buckles. So all of these small things just open a window to the past and really kind of reveal the history through these found objects.

Anne Marie Cannon:

One of the things in your book, and I this is a stupid question, but I was going through it today, and there's some green cufflinks that you found, paste cufflinks. Were they together?

Jason Sandy:

Yes. Yeah.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Because it it looked you took a picture. Is that exactly how you found them?

Jason Sandy:

Yes. Yeah, so back then uh cufflinks were double-sided, so you had uh a link on both sides, whereas today normally you just have one side that's decorated and the other is just like that pivot rod that kind of secures it to the back of the link. So they were actually connected together with a small loop fastener. Uh so a lot of times the reason why they fell off and were lost in the Thames is because one side pops off and the other side falls into the river. So you normally don't find them together. But this is one of the rare ones that I found that was actually still linked together.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Oh, that's cool. That's cool. Uh how old were they?

Jason Sandy:

So those about the Georgian period, so 18th century. Wow.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Pretty color of green, too.

Jason Sandy:

Yeah, it is. So a lot of times they were actually using colored glass to imitate more precious gemstones. So it would have been worn by everyday people, so not kings or queens, but um people like you and you and I. And what they would do is they would actually put a silver foil behind the glass and they would kind of chamfer the glass, cut the glass to really make it uh look like a precious gemstone. And then that was then enclosed or encased set within uh either a brass setting, brass setting, or a pugia setting. And the brass was highly polished, so it did look like gold. And when you'd have a very striking green stone in there, it looked like an emerald. So you could do a pretty good fake job uh by cutting glass and then setting it in a very bright colored uh brass setting.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Wow. So what's the name of the book?

Jason Sandy:

Uh it's called Thames Mudlarking, Searching for London's Lost Treasures, and it's available at all good bookshops, both online and in stores. And it costs less than ten dollars, I think, in the States, uh, depending on where you're it's a lovely book.

Anne Marie Cannon:

It's a great book. I'm holding it up right now. You can't see me, listeners, but it's beautiful. I love the paper, I love the photos, I love the way that it's organized. Yeah. And so your co-author is Nick Stevens. So is he like a friend of yours that you met Mudlarking? And you're like, we should write a book about this.

Jason Sandy:

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And because we have a lot of friends, uh, we really wanted to kind of, as I mentioned before, bring the community together. And he's found some uh absolutely stunning artifacts, and one of the big ones, which I think you might have seen, is a little bit shocking, but he found the complete skeleton of a 12-year-old girl from the mid-18th century. Uh so that's one of Nick's best finds. What year did he find that? Uh I think it was 2009, but don't quote me on that. So he immediately called the police. He did, yes. And because the tide was actually coming in, the skull was submerged by the time he actually the police actually arrived. And uh he actually had to put a stake kind of beside the body and then go back and retrieve it underwater. So he literally said it was like pulling a bowling ball out of the mud. He had to put his fingers in the eye sockets and just lift it up slowly.

Anne Marie Cannon:

But he didn't want to move it because it it was a potential crime scene, right? Or something.

Jason Sandy:

Exactly. Yeah. And the police came, but they didn't have the rubber boots on. Uh, and because the tide had already come in slightly, uh, Nick had to go wading out and literally just kind of search underwater where you put the stake and then uh pull the skull out. And then a team of archaeologists went out to excavate the whole skeleton uh a few weeks later.

Anne Marie Cannon:

And they determined uh it was a girl, 12 years-ish.

Jason Sandy:

Yes, so it was taken away by the Thames Discovery Program. They're the company or the program that excavated it, and they're trained archaeologists, and they did uh some radiocarbon dating in order to establish the age, and um they fully inspected the whole skeleton, and they said that she was malnourished, and they think that's the cause of death, and that she also had rickets, uh, which is quite a common disease back then uh because of malnutrition. So they actually analyzed her teeth, and um, Nick wants to have further tests done so they can establish what she ate, what her diet was, that type of thing. Uh, because these days they can really analyze and find out a lot about uh what what their diet was just from their uh teeth.

Anne Marie Cannon:

It's sad.

Jason Sandy:

Yeah, very sad. Yeah.

Anne Marie Cannon:

So where is the skeleton today?

Jason Sandy:

I believe it's still with the Thames Discovery program. They have it in their storage unit.

Anne Marie Cannon:

So, what was the strangest thing you've ever found?

Jason Sandy:

Yeah, unfortunately, we do find bodies down there. So that's probably the the strangest and more gruesome things that we find. And not old like NYX, but uh like from the night before uh suicide victims uh washed up and face down in the mud. So yeah, it's it's very heartbreaking and obviously it's very disturbing. Normally I go down to go mudlarking to get away from the the kind of stress of the city, and the last thing you want to do is is find someone down there uh in that condition.

Anne Marie Cannon:

I never even thought about that. So let's see, where can we find you?

Jason Sandy:

Uh so I post all of my finds on Instagram, so it's uh at Jason Mudlark all one word, and I post several times a week and just kind of show you um what I'm up to, my favorite finds that I found recently, and also upcoming events. Uh so for instance, this coming September, we've been collaborating with the Totally Thames Festival, uh, the Thames Festival Trust, and we're putting on a whole series of mudlarking exhibitions throughout London, which is quite spectacular because we're actually every weekend going to a different historic venue and different mudlarks will be displaying their collections there. So we have over 70 mudlarks involved, and normally our personal collections, because we're allowed to keep pretty much everything we find on the riverbed, a lot of mudlarks have very extensive large collections, which are unfortunately stored under our beds on top of cupboards, uh just collecting dust. So we get to dust it all off once a year and kind of take it on a road trip around London. So this year we're starting um at Waterman's Hall, which is the home of the Thames Watermen and Lycwomen, uh, which used to live and work along the river. And some of these people still drive the Uber boats or the um the Thames Clippers, which still go up and down the river. Uh so we start there and exhibit some of our finds in that ancient hall. And then we take everything over to the National Maritime Museum, so over in Greenwich, which is very historic, and we're focusing specifically on Tudor and Maritime London because there's so much Tudor history in that area. Uh, King Henry VIII, uh, Elizabeth I, uh, Queen Mary, they were all born in that palace that's uh now been destroyed and built over. But some of the artifacts that we find there on the Greenwich foreshore are actually from that original palace, the Palace of Placentia. Uh, so it's such a beautiful area that's steeped in history. So to be able to display some of our Tudor artifacts and some of our maritime uh artifacts is just absolutely a stunning setting for that. And then we move everything to St. Paul's Cathedral, so in central London. So that was pretty much the heart of where the old city was destroyed back in the Great Fire of 1666. And then the St. Paul's Cathedral was rebuilt in the 17th century by Sir Christopher Wren. Uh, so we're actually exhibiting and displaying some of our artifacts in the old medieval part that was untouched by the fire, which is down in the crypt area. So, again, such a beautiful historic venue. Then the following week, the last week of September, we're exhibiting over in the Roman amphitheater. And most people don't know this, but London used to have its own amphitheater back in Roman times, built in around the second century AD. And it was discovered back in the 1980s when they were doing some excavation work uh for the Guildhall Art Gallery. And uh, so they've excavated it, and you can actually walk into the arena where the gladiators used to battle and uh fight wild animals. So to be able to display some of our Roman artifacts in such a historic venue uh and just bring the history to life. I mean, a lot of times you and I don't have access to these historic artifacts, but the beauty of these exhibitions is that everything is on display and you're allowed to hold the artifacts and just feel the weight of history.

Anne Marie Cannon:

That is cool. I recently interviewed Simon Bourne of Psy Finds, and he is actually in your book, and he talks about um the Nathaniel Posner dog tag, which he talked about in my episode, which I thought was really cool. I started reading it. I was like, I know about that. Simon actually told me about that. So you do you do highlight the finds of other mudlarks? That's the other thing I love about the book and the community, you know, that they're willing to showcase what they found.

Jason Sandy:

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, and I haven't really told too many people yet. Uh, I'll make an official announcement some other time, but I'm working on the next book. Oh, yeah. And it features it features over 30 portraits of different mudlarks that are currently active and tells their personal stories and shows some of their best finds.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Oh, I just got the chills. I love it. I can't wait to get it and read it.

Jason Sandy:

So it introduces you to like sci finds, so Simon Bourne, Nick White, who you said you're also trying to interview, uh, she's in the book. So it's just bringing these people's personal stories to life. And we can't go back in time and meet the people that dropped the artifacts in the Thames, but we can go meet the people that found those artifacts. And it's quite amazing because some of these finds, they've literally changed people's lives. And one of my favorite stories that's at the front of the book, I shouldn't give too much away, is uh Tobias Neto, who I think you might have heard, uh, found a Victoria Cross Medal. And he found that uh Victoria Cross Medal in the Thames that literally uh changed his life. That was a life-defining moment for him. And it meant so much to him that he's actually had it tattooed on his arm.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Wow.

Jason Sandy:

Uh-huh the image of the Victoria Cross Medal. So I just love those pieces of history. Like I said, you can't go back in time, but you can meet the people now and understand how those objects are still uh on a journey. We're just uh custodians of these objects that we find. So we're gonna give that on to the next generation. I'm gonna give my collection to my children, and my son is an active mudlark. And so we just kind of give this on to the next generation. So it's generational.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Yeah, finding the next generation that's interested. So when I came to London the last time my daughter met us in London, she's 37. And um, I was like, we're gonna go see history together and do all these things. And now she's into she was into the nightlife. And I was like, I don't know what I was expecting. She's not into it, but I'm so thrilled that my great nephew Finley, who helped me to interview Simon, is he's so into this. He loves metal detecting, he loves looking for arrowheads and all those things. So I think he is my next generation. You know, they gotta be interested in it, right? So are your kids are interested in it? Your son is.

Jason Sandy:

Yeah. Uh so my daughter, uh, she's a little bit older now, she's 14, so she's less interested. Uh, she used to love going and hunting for garnets. I think you've probably heard about the garnets that we find in the Thames. So she's had beautiful pieces of jewelry made with the garnets that she's found. Uh, she had a beautiful ring made and also a lovely pendant uh that was actually made by a uh jewelry designer in Texas. Uh, he saw one of my posts on Instagram and uh asked me to send him some garnets and then made me a lovely pendant uh using my daughter's garnets. So my daughter used to love going garnet hunting or searching for them. Um my son, he loves the history, especially around the the tutor time. Uh, one of his favorite finds is a coin from King Henry VIII.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Wow.

Jason Sandy:

Uh so to find something that you've just learned about in history the day before in class and to hold something that's 500 years old is just mind-boggling. And uh when we got home, uh originally we couldn't tell what kind of coin it was because it was fully corroded and uh not corroded, but encrusted. Yeah. So I had to release that incrustation using electrolysis at home. And then it came up uh as shiny as new, and we could make out the bus of King Henry VIII. But then when I looked in the book, uh Spink's book, to find out like what exact coin it was, it said it wasn't actually from King Henry VIII, it's actually from his son. So his son became king shortly after Henry VIII's death, but he was so young he didn't last that long. So he became king when he was age nine. And because he was such a young king, uh nobody trusted the money with his face on it. So in order to get away around that and just kind of um Get some respect. He used his father's face on the coin, even though it was his coinage. So it says Edward on it, but it's actually got his father's face on it. Oh, that's interesting. And my son was nine years old when he actually found the coin. And the the boy who became king that was made in his first year when he was nine years old. So a nine-year-old king, his coin was found by my nine-year-old son. So that was one of the best things.

Anne Marie Cannon:

And like with the clay pipes, I found a couple clay pipes. It's like somebody put it through it in the Thames for me to find. And that was that's like a tangible connection in a way that, you know, even though they're not here today, it's still connecting, and even if you don't know who it was, it still, you know, fosters the imagination. And I don't know. I really like that. I think that connection to history, everything that happened before to bring us here today, all the narrow misses of our ancestors, like all those things. It just, if you if you're not naw that I can't relate to you.

Jason Sandy:

Yeah.

Anne Marie Cannon:

No, that's extreme. I don't that's not true.

Jason Sandy:

But yeah, in terms terms of my own personal story, so my ancestors sailed over from England back in 1638, so 18 years after the Mayflower sailed. And they started off, they started their journey from Southwold, uh, which is up in Norfolk, so on the east coast of England, and sailed first to Connecticut, where you said you used to live. So they were in the New Haven colony for one year, didn't like it in New Haven, and decided to move right across the bay over to Long Island. And that's where with 13 other fam, sorry, 12 other families, so 13 in total, they started their own colony, uh, which is called the Southhold Colony, which is named after the place that they started in England back in 1638. So in 1640 is when they started that colony. And so my my uh ancestors were original colonists, and we don't have any heirlooms from that time period. So when I find something from like the 1630s or early 1640s, I just know that they would have had those types of coins in their pockets or they would have been smoking those same clay pipes. Uh so it just kind of, yeah, it gives me the goosebumps as well, just knowing that my ancestors used to have that in their pockets.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Yeah, that's interesting. So my people came over from England. I found out after my father passed because he was pure Irish in his mind, but it turned out that his grandfather was pure English. And um, that's really when I became fascinated with England because I was doing that genealogical research. And so um there was a part of my family, not direct ancestors, that broke off and they went over to the same area, Connecticut, New Haven. The last name was Bud, and um I've connected our trees, but then my people came over actually to Canada from Hampshire. They were basically in Hampshire, and there was a thing called the Petworth scheme. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but basically it was for all the uh agricultural workers that were rebellious and out of work because technology was changing. So those were my people. And um, what happened is uh they basically supported people to go over to Canada, they gave them some land and they cleared away the land and they had they were able to start off new there. And so uh most of my family came over in the 1800s to Canada and then moved down into the United States. But when I uh and I say all this because when I went there in 2013 and lived in London, I did a lot of traveling to the areas that I had traced my family to. And you know, maybe it's just my imagination, but I really connected to some of the areas in Hampshire, like uh me and Stoke was a little town. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, uh, close to Winchester, but there was just this feeling of connection that I have never had anywhere else. And I really just and that really kind of fostered my love of the UK, and there's so many more areas I'd love to go to there, but um, the countryside, everything about it just really spoke to me, and um yeah, so that kind of has fed my desire to find artifacts in the Thames like you, and imagine, oh, this is what my ancestors were up to, this is what they were doing, this is what they were wearing, and that type of thing. So uh, but I do digress.

Jason Sandy:

No, that's what I think uh it just makes it so relevant to us. And I'm the first generation to actually move back to the UK. So after uh almost 400 years, I'm the first one to move back now uh from my family side, from my mother's side. So that was quite exciting. For over 200 years, they never left the island. Uh they they obviously traveled, but uh the people didn't move off the island. And it was my uh grandfather's generation uh that was one of the first ones. Obviously, people before that moved off, but he moved to upstate New York, which isn't too far from Long Island. And then my mom's generation, they moved to California, to Chicago, Virginia, um, and Pennsylvania. So they kind of scattered a bit further afield than my my generation. My brother moved to France and I've moved to England. Uh so we've really kind of immigrated back to Europe that's great in just three generations.

Anne Marie Cannon:

So was how was the the move? Like, was there culture shock or did you just easily kind of step into living in England?

Jason Sandy:

Uh so I originally was living in Germany before I moved to England, and that was much more of a culture shock, obviously, just because of the language. In Britain, it felt like I was coming home after having lived in Germany for eight years. Uh Britain felt like, oh, this is very much like America, um, similar language. Um I'm still learning the the correct words at different times, like uh pants here means your underwear. Whereas uh I guess I didn't know they they say trousers. So I used to say, yeah, oh, I got my pants dirty, which means I soiled my underwear, uh, which uh I was always a little bit embarrassed when I found out that oops, I should say trousers and not pants.

Anne Marie Cannon:

So well, it takes a lot of courage to do that to up kind of root yourself and go to another country. My fantasy would be to live in London for three months out of the year and travel out from there, but I haven't figured that one out yet. So, where do we see this history in pop culture?

Jason Sandy:

Yeah, in terms of pol pop culture, though, I think that because of social media, really people like yourselves, people abroad are really hearing about this unique phenomenon that's happening in London. So mud liking doesn't occur in many cities just because you don't have the right conditions. So London is unusual because a tide fluctuates about seven to ten meters twice a day, which is the height of a two-story building. So if you go to Paris, the Seine, the River Seine, doesn't go up and down at all unless there's like a drought. In Berlin, the river Spray doesn't go up and down at all. It's not a tidal river. So all of those treasures that have been lost along the river in both Paris and Berlin are not uh able to be found. I used to live in New York City along the Hudson River, and that also just fluctuates not that much uh in terms of the height of the water. It doesn't really reveal the riverbed at low tide. It still is relatively constant. It does go up and down and fluctuate, but it doesn't really expose a lot of the riverbed. So mudlurking, as far as I'm aware, is not such a big phenomenon in New York City because you don't have the conditions for finding artifacts on the exposed riverbed of the East River or of the Hudson. Whereas in London, because the riverbed at low tide becomes the longest and largest archaeological site, that's why we're able to go searching and hunting. And in terms of pop culture, it's really only because of social media that people abroad have found out about mudlarking. It's become much more popular. And like yourself, you say you're you're coming to London specifically to go mudlarking. That is just a recent phenomenon that's only started in the last 10, 15 years.

Anne Marie Cannon:

I wonder if they're gonna have to start even regulating that.

Jason Sandy:

Yeah, it has grown exponentially. I I got all the statistics from the the Port of London Authority just this year, and uh the number of permits has gone up uh over double within the last uh four years. So I think just because of social media, a lot of people these days are known kind of internationally, the mudlarks are, uh, similar to myself, and that's why there's kind of a general interest from around the world. And it's it's very rare, as I was mentioning earlier, that you can find historical artifacts and be able to keep them. It really is a British phenomenon. If you were living in Turkey and you found an ancient artifact, uh you could be arrested if you would take that home and not report it. So we're very lucky here in Britain to be able to, um, after we report things, to be able to keep them. Um so, like I mentioned, many butlocks have thousands of artifacts within their collections. So that's why I think it's become a pop phenomenon at the moment, is just because a lot of people worldwide would love to have that opportunity in their own backyard, similar to what we have here in London.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Yeah, that's true. So I'm always trying to figure out places to go metal detecting. And I live in a National Historic Landmark District in Colorado. And so I do mud, I guess it's mudlarking, because I find all kinds of stuff in the mud around here that are from the mining period, the 1800s. Yeah, so that it's I'm always looking for a place to go and find treasure and history and that type of thing, but there aren't as many options, like you say, is what the the Thames affords. So what's the most valuable thing you've ever found?

Jason Sandy:

Uh so I actually don't really know because I never have anything valued. Uh sometimes I do check online if if I know it's uh something that's either very rare or uh potentially historically important, but I've never had anything properly valued, so I'm not sure exactly what the value of individual items are. But uh one of the most unusual coins that I've ever found, which I know is worth a few thousand, is uh a coin that was made in the 17th century. It's made out of pewter and was only in circulation for two weeks. And because it was only in circulation for such a short period of time, it's worth a lot of money because they didn't produce that many of them. And most of them were melted down and made into other coins or other objects because the metal was quite precious back then. Pewter was not something that, yeah, every man had.

Anne Marie Cannon:

So, what made you write the book?

Jason Sandy:

Uh, so the reason why I wrote the book is just to really tell the whole story of London through the artifacts that we found in the river. So other books have been written before, but it's about people's personal collections. And this book uh was the first time that uh someone has written about the wider community's collection. Um, so not focused on my own personal finds or Nick's personal finds. It was kind of like a group effort to bring the book together. So that was the main reason is a lot of the fantastic artifacts that have been found uh aren't really known to the general public. We know them as mudlarks because we've studied and done a lot of research, but uh it hadn't been pulled together as kind of a an as a one source. The Museum of London has done a fantastic job with researching a lot of the different artifacts or collections. So, for instance, they uh acquired a collection of pewter toys from medieval times to post-medieval times. Those were all donated or acquired from a mudlark called Tony Pilsen, who's unfortunately passed away. But they came out with a great volume, a catalog, just with all of the different types of toys that have been found in the Thames. So they do things like pilgrim badges, they focus on pewter toys, as I just mentioned, and other like dress accessories, but it doesn't cover everything. So from the Roman times all the way to modern day times. So that's what we're trying to establish in the book, is just to kind of bring everything together and also keep it concise and short and inexpensive so everyone can buy it. It's it's not gonna break your bank to buy this book. It's it's less than 10 pounds.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Is there anything that I didn't ask you that you wanted to share with my audience?

Jason Sandy:

Uh yeah, the one thing that I would love to share is we're not only doing the exhibitions uh every September, but our end game is to open our own museum. Uh a lot of the artifacts that are on display in museums today, again, they kind of show the silver, the gold, the very precious things that people owned. And it wasn't just normal people, it was always like the wealthy aristocrats, uh, the royals, the monarchs, the the richest people of society. But it's very uh uncommon to see just the ordinary objects like a button, a humble button, and how that can tell the story about one person who lived in London 200 years ago. So, what we want to do is bring all the ordinary objects in, like the bone toothbrushes that were used in Victorian times, or the Tudor combs that were used to comb out the knits. So, everyday personal objects, not the kind of gold and silver rings, I'm sure we'll have some of those as well. But we just want to tell the story of ordinary people throughout the 2,000 years of history along the River Thames. So the story of London, again, through the artifacts that we found. And the book was just the start of that. So the book is kind of a printed form of what we'd love to do in the museum itself.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Is there like something in the works for the museum, or is it just like a vision right now?

Jason Sandy:

So uh I'm an architect myself and I've been working on the project for several years. We've uh been to the Houses of Parliament, we've been to the mayor's office, uh, we've been to many different people around London meeting them, talking about the project. And we've also been meeting with exhibition designers, getting their proposals and ideas, and we've been also working with developers and trying to find a suitable location along the Thames. Uh, it should be along the river, and that's why it's taken a bit longer than we had hoped, uh, just because obviously that's prime real estate. So we've got a very good lead at the moment, and we're just waiting for the planning permission to be granted, and then hopefully we're able to make an announcement at some point. But uh the other part of the museum, which is one of the uh more unusual things, is we really want to make the museum experience kind of evolve around uh school kids, anyone that's interested, actually going on a guided tour of the foreshore themselves. So normally when you go to a museum, everything's behind a glass counter, a glass box, or a glass wall. We want to remove the glass and allow people to find things for themselves. And as you know from your own experience, going down on the river, you always find something interesting. Like my son, when he first started going, and I see many kids do this, they found a cow's tooth, and they're huge, but just that in itself, it has no kind of uh worth as such, but it just kind of piques your interest and gets you interested about uh London's history and and where did that tooth come from and who had that cow for dinner, or was that used to make a leather shoe or uh another byproduct? So all of these small things, whether it's a rock, a stone, a clay pipe, a clay pipe bowl, or uh pipe stem or a broken bit of pottery, all of that just uh unlocks a new story about London's past. And that's what we want to bring to the museum is allow you to discover history for yourself, not just have it kind of fed to you through the displays within the museum.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Yeah, I think that makes a huge difference. When I was in York, we went to the uh Yorkshire Museum.

Jason Sandy:

Yeah.

Anne Marie Cannon:

And they had areas where you could actually touch some of the artifacts, the old coins, and that type of thing. Um, and then the Viking, the Viking Museum they have there, which is funky. Yeah, and the museum part, like you could touch different things, and it just it it makes a huge difference. You're right. So, how is that going to be funded, just out of curiosity?

Jason Sandy:

So we're looking for grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund. And there's a lot of different other sources that we've been looking into, and we've been speaking with uh various charities. We're ourselves a registered charity now in the UK. So we are actively looking for sponsors. Uh, but again, these projects they don't happen overnight unless you have a huge grant from a private individual. Um, it takes many years. And obviously, with COVID just having passed through the pandemic, a lot of the funding has dried up just because a lot of uh sources are propping up current museums because they haven't had an income over the past two years. So a lot of that's just been kind of diverted over to not new projects, but to existing projects just to make sure that they don't um yeah, go under.

Anne Marie Cannon:

That's interesting. So, what's the name of your organization?

Jason Sandy:

It's called Thames Museum. That's the name of the museum, and you can find us at thamesmuseum.org. So if you go online, it's www.temsmuseum, that's one word dot org.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Okay, and I'll definitely link out to to that, to your social media, to do you have a website?

Jason Sandy:

I don't personally, but um I post a lot of things on the yeah.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Okay, and I definitely recommend the book, whether you're a mudlark or not, because the history is fascinating. The stories that are told through the artifacts is amazing. Um, so definitely what's the name of the book again, one more time?

Jason Sandy:

Thames Mudlarking Searching for London's lost treasures.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Okay, and was there anything else?

Jason Sandy:

I think we've pretty much covered everything.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Yeah, I think so too.

Jason Sandy:

Uh just one one thing is kind of unrelated, but uh you mentioned Simon. Uh we were commissioned by the historic royal palaces to go searching in the moat around the Tower of London Castle this year. The Society of Thames Mudlarks has established a really good working relationship with the Museum of London over the years, and they have used mudlarks on different sites along the river for decades now. Because we're skilled metal detectorists, they use us to uh comb sites that are currently being excavated. So if new developments are being built along the river and they're digging down, they want to make sure that they find everything. And archaeologists they do a fantastic job uh looking and finding things by sight. But uh, as a metal detectorist, we find everything that's metallic on the site that sometimes can be overlooked because uh it is a very black mud that we're searching through. So uh late last year, we were invited by the historic royal palaces uh to metal detect within the uh moat of the Tower of London Castle, which is right along the river uh in central London. It's one of the most uh historic sites in London and it's a world uh UNESCO World Heritage Site. So it's absolutely uh I was I was just blown away by the opportunity to go down and look for lost artifacts in the moat. Uh so the first day it was just two mudlarks and the Museum of London. We were the only ones, so three of us that were actually searching for these lost artifacts of the moat. So Nick Stevens, the co-author of the book, and myself, and then Stuart White from the Museum of London. Uh so to be honest, I thought we'd just find a lot of poll tabs from bottles or bottle caps, uh, a lot of modern rubbish or garbage, trash in the moat. But uh within the first hour, we started finding medieval artifacts. And somehow, obviously, over the years there's stratification, but because there's been different building works within the moat over the past 200 years, um, things have come to the surface as they were digging through uh different layers. So we were just metal detecting the spoil that they were excavating because they were putting in a new drainage system within the moat to irrigate a new project, which is called the Superbloom Project, which was a kind of commemorative flower garden for Queen Elizabeth II's uh platinum jubilee, which happened in June. So that's why they uh asked us to volunteer. So I volunteered over three different days, uh, took three days off of work to go down and search for pretty much eight to ten hours and just find anything that we could salvage from the old moat. What an absolutely cracking opportunity to actually uh discover London's history in a site that's not on the river. It was actually a field, it's a grassy kind of field now within the moat. But we did find Tudor artifacts, we found medieval artifacts, uh, a lot of Victorian things. And one of the key things that the Museum of London, also Historic Royal Palace, has said, is that we have found a large cross section of the Tower of London's history. But the one thing that they didn't know is how many different people use the moat for their training grounds. So soldiers used to come and train at the Tower of London, and they would even camp within the moat itself. And they have no record of all of the different people and different soldiers and different regiments that have been in the moat. But as we were finding their buttons, the buttons that they left behind have their insignia and their names. So for instance, the Lovett Scouts, they were uh in the moat. And previously it was unknown that they were in the moat uh practicing or training. So we found a lot of bullets and ammunition along with their badges, their cap badges, their buttons off their uh uniforms. And so that was quite fascinating just to find long lost history, and it now serves as a good record of who actually was using the moat from pretty much Victorian times up until present day, after the moat was infilled back, and I think it was around 1835 when the water was drained.

Anne Marie Cannon:

That was going to be my next question. When did they take the water out of it? That's cool. That sounds really exciting. Anything else?

Jason Sandy:

I think we literally have covered everything now.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Yeah, I think so. Jason Sandy, thank you so much for being here. I really enjoyed talking to you.

Jason Sandy:

Thanks so much for having me.

Anne Marie Cannon:

There you have it. Jason Sandy. The name of the book is Thames Mudlarking, searching for London's Lost Treasures. To find out more about the book and about Jason, do check out our episode notes. Thanks for joining us. Have a great day.

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Anne Marie Cannon

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