The Wick List

Viewing Secrets of the Thames at the London Museum

The Wick Culture - Lead badges (1300–1500) go on display at London Museum Docklands’ Secrets of the Thames exhibition. Image courtesy of London Museum

Above Lead badges (1300–1500) go on display at London Museum Docklands’ Secrets of the Thames exhibition. Image courtesy of London Museum

The Wick Culture - The neck from a stoneware bottle with a bearded face known as a Bartmann bottle 1500s – 1600s. The bearded face decorating the neck lies half-buried on the foreshore. Image courtesy of Alessio Checconi and London Museum

Above The neck from a stoneware bottle with a bearded face known as a Bartmann bottle 1500s – 1600s. The bearded face decorating the neck lies half-buried on the foreshore. Image courtesy of Alessio Checconi and London Museum

The Wick Culture - Mudlark Monika Buttling-Smith searches the foreshore. Image courtesy of London Museum

Above Mudlark Monika Buttling-Smith searches the foreshore. Image courtesy of London Museum

Above Lead badges (1300–1500) go on display at London Museum Docklands’ Secrets of the Thames exhibition. Image courtesy of London Museum

Above Mudlark Monika Buttling-Smith searches the foreshore. Image courtesy of London Museum

Secrets of the Thames

London Museum
15 Apr 2025 – 1 March 2026

The London Museum’s crowd-pleasing new exhibition takes as its subject the life vein of the capital, the River Thames, and all the traces of lives that have passed along it. Featuring more than 350 objects found on the river bed – a practice called mudlarking, when items are collected when the tide recedes, twice a day – this fascinating collection gives an account of the city like no other.

Mudlarking is an historical scavenging practice dating back to the 18th century, when Londoners collected items to sell – often a means of survival, but nowadays is a niche hobby. This London Museum show is the first ever exhibition devoted to it. Artefacts uncovered date back to the Roman era, and represent shifts in trade and commerce, everyday life and culture in the city.

Many of the long lost treasures tells mysterious and ominous stories, giving a fresh perspective on London and its life in the past and present, from a 500-year-old knitted Tudor hat, a dagger, and a set of false teeth from the 18th century, to an old poison bottle and an ivory sundial.