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Tom Chivers

@thisisyogic

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Writer, publisher, producer & researcher. Dad of girls. Thames mudlark. Founder @pennedinthemargins. Author of London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City.

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My book London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City makes - I’m told! - the perfect Christmas gift for the London-lover in your life 😊

Available in paperback, hardback, ebook and audiobook. Link in bio.

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'A lyrical meditation on landscapes and cities, vivid reportage and a memoir. And also a beautifully realised and moving read.' Financial Times

'A beguiling mix of history, geology, folklore and memoir that captivated me from the first page.' Lara Maiklem, author of Mudlarking

'Tom Chivers brings a poet's sensibility to this book about the hidden parts of the capital, mixing the past with the present, the known with the unknown and his personal story with social history and geology.' Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other

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What secrets lie beneath a city?

Tom Chivers follows hidden pathways, explores lost islands and uncovers the geological mysteries that burst up through the pavement and bubble to the surface of our streets. From Roman ruins to a submerged playhouse, from an abandoned Tube station to underground rivers, Chivers leads us on a journey into the depths of the city he loves.

A lyrical interrogation of a capital city, a landscape and our connection to place, London Clay celebrates urban edgelands: in-between spaces where the natural world and the metropolis collide. Through a combination of historical research, vivid reportage and personal memoir, it will transform how you see London, and cities everywhere.

'Tom Chivers, with the forensic eye of an investigator, the soul of a poet, is an engaging presence; a guide we would do well to follow.' Iain Sinclair, author of The Last London

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#London #Londonhistory #nonfiction #psychogeography #explore #writersofinstagram #urban #mudlark #mudlarker #mudlarking #urbangeography #history #city #lostriver #lostrivers #naturewriting by @thisisyogic

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3 years ago

Friends, I have NEWS 🗞

In October I started a PhD @qmulgeography in collaboration with @molarchaeology!

For the next four years I will be researching the relationship between people, history, landscape and the environment through the lens of #mudlarking on the #Thames!

The PhD project is funded by #AHRC via the Collaborative Doctoral Partnership - a programme which supports PhDs between academic institutions and cultural/heritage organisations.

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It’s very strange going back to university 18 yrs after finishing my BA, but I’m passionate about the subject and privileged to have an amazing supervisory team across the fields of geography, history, heritage & archaeology.

QM: Professor Alastair Owens & Dr Edward Legon
MOLA: Dr Claire Harris & Catherine Gibbs

I love the Thames deeply and can’t wait to explore how mudlarks traverse its landscapes and shape its stories…

#mudlark #mudlarker #beachcombing #beachcomber #London #Londonhistory #geography #history #archaeology #heritage #queenmary #qmul #academic #academia #phd by @thisisyogic

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4 years ago

🐑 🐑 Today the girls and I witnessed one of London’s ancient traditions – freemen of the City driving sheep across the river (over London Bridge historically, Southwark Bridge today)! @the_woolmen @spitalfieldscityfarm @surreydocksfarm by @thisisyogic

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6 days ago

PhD thesis submitted ✅

Four years trudging in the mud with Thames searchers distilled into 100,000 words. In due course, I am required to defend my thesis in conversation with my two examiners. I’m not Doctor Mudlark, yet.

So for now, I’m going to treat myself to a coffee and a pastry, and work on what comes next…

As ever, huge thanks to my amazing supervisory team: Alastair Owens (@alastairhackney), Claire Harris (@clairereharris), Cat Gibbs (@mola_catg) and Ed Legon.

#mudlarking #Thames #London #archaeology #phdlif by @thisisyogic

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17 days ago

Am I the only one who finds it strangely moving to find children’s shoe soles in the Thames mud? 👞

#mudlarking #Thames #archaeology #London #Londonhistory by @thisisyogic

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17 days ago

This is nightlarking 🔦 🌖 (sound on – watch to the end to hear how quiet it is at slack tide!)

#mudlark #mudlarking #Thames #London #Londonhistory by @thisisyogic

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18 days ago

Last weekend, I assembled a crack squad of historians, archaeologists, academic researchers, artists and mudlarks for the Hands on History Symposium: Mudlarks of the Thames Foreshore.

It was a fitting finale to my four-year postgraduate research with @qmulgeography and @molarchaeology, during which I have conducted in-depth ethnographic and geographic studies of Thames mudlarking and the extraordinarily varied landscapes of the riverbed at low tide.

I hope this is the start of many conversations and collaborations!

Huge thanks to all the speakers and audience members, to @handsonhistorymudlarks @thamesfestivaltrust and Guildhall for hosting us, and to AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnership scheme for supporting the project through their Researcher-Led Activity Fund.

📸 Photos by Milo Jerome Robinson @milojeromephotography

#mudlarking #Thames #Londonhistory #archaeology #foreshore by @thisisyogic

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21 days ago

Harvest Fair @surreydocksfarm with my Young Farmer and her mate 🐑 🐐 🐇 👩‍🌾 💚💛🧡 by @thisisyogic

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21 days ago

🪙 When this low-value Roman coin entered the Thames, in the second half of the fourth century, Londinium was already in terminal decline. The great amphitheatre, built for 7,000 spectators, had been abandoned and its stone stripped out to repair the city walls. The forum and basilica demolished. And once-bustling urban spaces turned over to fields and pasture – identified in the archaeological record as ‘dark earth’.

The coin, found more than three miles downstream of the City, shows the portrait of an emperor - probably Valentinian I (364-75) - and on the reverse the winged figure of Victory walking left with a wreath in one hand and a palm frond in the other. The inscription is indistict but would have read SECVRITAS REIPVBLICAE - ‘the security of the republic’.

During Valentinian’s rule, the Empire faced widespread insurgencies in North Africa, Gaul, Central Europe, and in Britain, where coordinated attacks by Scots, Picts and Saxons led to Hadrian’s Wall being temporarily overrun. The Emperor himself died, in 375, from a stroke during a fit of rage induced by negotiations with the Quadi - a Germanic people who lived by the Danube.

In less than 35 years, Rome pulled its military forces out of Britain, leaving this once prosperous island-colony defenceless to invasion.

What the coin was doing in the mud of the Thames foreshore at Rotherhithe is anyone’s guess. Could it have been dropped from a Roman galley making its way upriver from the continent? Or washed out from one of the streams snaking their way through the marshlands of Southwark? On the higher ground to the west, on the Bermondsey eyot, archaeologists have found evidence of farming and flood management in the Roman period. Just as likely, extensive dredging of the riverbed over the centuries may have led this coin to have been redeposited on a different stretch of the foreshore.

What do you think?

#mudlarking #RomanLondon #archaeology #numismatics #Romancoin by @thisisyogic

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a month ago

Roman coin found at night on the Thames foreshore 🔍 🔦 🪙 🌊 ⚠️

This copper-alloy (bronze?) coin has been in the river almost two thousand years. I spotted it stuck between rocks in a part of the Thames I used to search a lot but which is not known for high quantities of Roman finds. On one side, there is a standing figure between two vertical lines - posts, spears, standards? On the other, the head of an unknown emperor looking right.

Let me know if you can help me identify the ruler and date…

#Mudlarking #mudlark #Thames #archaeology #romancoin by @thisisyogic

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a month ago

Introducing Session 6 of the two-day symposium I have curated with @handsonhistorymudlarks on #mudlarking and the #Thames #foreshore

🔍 Mudlarking in Contemporary British Dramaturgy and Performance — Kamila Mamadnazarbekova (Sorbonne University)

Mud occupies a paradoxical place in contemporary British culture, associated with both pollution and preservation. This paper explores how contemporary British theatre and live art transform mud into dramaturgical material through which to negotiate ecological crisis, industrial heritage and more-than-human histories. Focusing on Vicky Donoghue’s Mudlarks and The Flood, and the Arbonaut’s Silt, it argues that mud acts as an active archive, preserving material traces and reshaping memory.

🔍 Sonic Mudlarking: Acoustic Ecology and the River Thames — Lee Berwick

Lee’s recordings from along the Thames span decades and catalogue a river in a state of constant, and often unexpected, change. Sounds included in this presentation will include the construction of the London Eye, paper being unloaded at London’s last working dockyard (Convoys Wharf, Deptford), the cockles hissing at low water out on the Ray Sands, and the landing stage in front of what is now the Tate Modern being demolished. What can we learn from these fragments of the recent past that are captured in these recordings?

🔍 What Does the Creative Permit Do for Artists and the Public? — Alexandra Abraham

I will show how the PLA Creative Permit encourages curiosity, storytelling and public appreciation of the
Thames foreshore. I will show how individuals respond to, and transform, historic fragments into artworks, jewellery and mosaics, giving them a second life and engaging new audiences with the Thames’ rich heritage. by @thisisyogic

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a month ago

Introducing Session 5 from the two-day symposium I’ve curated with @handsonhistorymudlarks on #mudlarking and the #Thames #foreshore

🔍 In the Palm of Empire — Nsiya Mangu (Our Global London/Thames Festival Trust)

In the Palm of Empire traces the journey of a single tropical seed pod—a Coquilla nut—from the Atlantic forests of Brazil to the mud of the Thames foreshore. This talk explores how a botanical object became a commodity of colonial extraction, moving through networks of trade, enslaved labour, and 19th-century
collecting culture.

🔍 Bartmann Goes Global — Nigel Jeffries (Museum of London Archaeology)

In this presentation Nigel Jeffries introduces ‘Bartmann Goes Global - the cultural impact of an iconic object in the early modern period’ – a collaborative research project between the UK and Germany, funded by the AHRC and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

🔍 Shells and Pretty Buttons: How a Victorian Obsession for Mother-of-Pearl Emptied
Asian Oyster Beds — Monika Buttling-Smith (Hands on History/Thames Festival Trust)

The Aristocracy have always valued pearls, but Victorian Global Trade introduced the middle-classes to their own pearlescent treasure. Romantically called ‘Mother-of-Pearl”, an entire industry exploded from the imported oyster shells: intricate marquetry, ornate
trinket boxes, exotic gaming tokens, delicate brooches and the humble button.

🔍 London’s Medieval Riverfront: Trade, Migration and Objects — Eliot Benbow (Institute of Historical Research)

London’s medieval riverfront is an area of rich historical interests reflected in its long-standing study by historians, archaeologists, and mudlarks. This talk will introduce a particularly important source, made more readily available for the first time. The London Customs Account track the import and export of goods and commodities from the Port of London c. 1380-1560 and are an unparalleled source for considering patterns of trade, migration and material culture. by @thisisyogic

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a month ago