Hacker Remix

The Curious Gems of the River Thames

73 points by alt227 6 days ago | 24 comments

pavel_lishin 6 days ago

> Only a few people are legally allowed to hunt for Thames garnets—or even remove them if they find them by chance. Mudlarks are among the few who are legally permitted to remove items from the riverbanks. To be a mudlark, you need a license, and in recent years, the British government suspended the issuing of new licenses for several years following a boom in applications during the pandemic lockdowns, leaving the already tight-knit mudlark community in a holding pattern.

Well, that's something new I learned today. I wonder why they have to be licensed?

notavalleyman 6 days ago

Here's a licence issuing authority's faq section.

https://pla.co.uk/thames-foreshore-permits

>Why do I need consent?

> All the foreshore in the UK has an owner. Metal detecting, searching or digging is not a public right and as such it needs the permission of the landowner. The PLA and the Crown Estate are the largest landowners of Thames foreshore and jointly issue a permit, which is administered by the PLA, allowing all searching, metal detecting, ‘beachcombing’, scraping and digging.

Another section reads,

> The foreshore of the river Thames is a sensitive environment and London’s longest archaeological site, with finds dating back to 10,000 BCE. It is also the border to the UK’s biggest port and busiest inland waterway and must be protected and respected by all that use it.

> The Thames foreshore is a potentially hazardous environment which must be respected; it contains many dangers that may not always be immediately apparent. The Thames can rise and fall by over seven metres twice a day as the tide comes in and out. The current is fast and the water is cold.

RajT88 6 days ago

>London’s longest archaeological site

The English have a bit of a history when it comes to looting historical artifacts. They would like to exercise some control over when they are found, I imagine.

multjoy 6 days ago

The Elgin marbles are named for the Scottish noble who purloined them. It as much a British thing as it is an English one.

pavel_lishin 6 days ago

SEVEN METERS!? Wow!

mkl 6 days ago

It's a largely artificial problem, too, with very small tidal effects originally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embanking_of_the_tidal_Thames

The original marshlands were drained gradually for agriculture, and the land sank as it dried. The southeast of the island has been sinking relative to sea level for natural reasons as well.

From the link above:

> The Embanking of the tidal Thames is the historical process by which the lower River Thames, at one time a shallow waterway, perhaps five times broader than today, winding through malarious marshlands, has been transformed by human intervention into a deep, narrow tidal canal flowing between solid artificial walls, and restrained by these at high tide.

> With small beginnings in Roman Londinium, it was pursued more vigorously in the Middle Ages. Mostly it was achieved by farmers reclaiming marshland and building protective embankments or, in London, frontagers pushing out into the stream to get more riverfront property. Today, over 200 miles of walls line the river's banks from Teddington down to its mouth in the North Sea; they defend a tidal flood plain where 1.25 million people work and live. Much of present-day London is recovered marshland: considerable parts lie below high water mark.

trhway 6 days ago

For your further amusement - tide-proof "coastline railway in Brighton, England, that ran through the shallow coastal waters" :) And electric at that!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_and_Rottingdean_Seash...

" The single car used on the railway was a 45 by 22 ft (13.7 by 6.7 m) pier-like building which stood on four 23 ft (7.0 m)-long legs."

gcanyon 5 days ago

I have added this to-do to my time-travel list -- thanks!

alt227 6 days ago

The UK has some really big tides.

See the river Severn, whos estuary tidal range is 15 metres, and the second highest in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Estuary

ncruces 6 days ago

An image/map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:M2_tidal_constituent.jpg

wongarsu 6 days ago

Basically the UK is in the way when a sizable chunk of the Atlantic wants to move north-east to follow the tides. The water squeezes into whatever openings it can find and creates really high tides in the process

myself248 6 days ago

In my mind, "gems" is pronounced "games", just to mess with foreigners.

Jun8 6 days ago

Not these gems but my son and I hunted for and found a couple of 19th century single use pipes and part of a brick with a cool logo a couple of years ago. Go to the Tower Bridge, there are stairs to go to the shore right next to it. Good hunting!

pbalau 6 days ago

Before you do that, you need to be very careful about two things:

1. Tide state, witch I did

2. Dog poo, which I didn't and there is a pub I won't ever go back to, as I discovered the poo issue quite late.

mkl 6 days ago

The article says you need a licence, or is that location different?

nickdothutton 5 days ago

I highly recommend the museum of London. Probably days worth of stuff to see in there, and you can buy a ticket that allows return visits within a year. Best spot for garnets (for those with a permit, naturally) : Bankside Foreshore near the Tate Modern.