"My Excalibur Moment": Discovering A 16th Century Sword On A Bankside Beach

Last Updated 08 July 2024

"My Excalibur Moment": Discovering A 16th Century Sword On A Bankside Beach

In an extract from her new book, A Mudlarking Year: Finding Treasure in Every Season, Lara Maiklem describes the thrill of discovering a 16th century sword on a Bankside beach.

A hand in blue gloves holding the hilt of a sword on a barch
"I headed straight for my favourite patch. People were already there, and I could see from the footprints that it had been well searched, so I walked a little further along and that's when I saw it."

Thursday 2 February 2022

I hear from the Museum of London today about the 'sixteenth-century bladed object' I found last year. My Excalibur moment happened at the beginning of December on a murky Saturday afternoon. I don't usually mudlark on the weekend — the foreshore is often busier and I try to keep weekends for family time — but I was in London meeting friends for lunch that day, and as I made my way back to the station, I saw the tide was low. Actually, I knew the tide was low, which is why I took the longer route along the river to the station. How could I not? I only briefly considered my new brogues, which were entirely unsuitable, before unlatching the metal gate and taking the concrete stairs down onto the foreshore at Bankside. The light was fading, and I knew I didn't have long before I lost it altogether, so I headed straight for my favourite patch. People were already there, and I could see from the footprints that it had been well searched, so I walked a little further along and that's when I saw it.

A mudlarker on a London beach
"It was so obvious; I couldn't believe everyone else had missed it." © Tom Harrison

I had to blink, look away and look back again to make sure I wasn't just seeing a shadow or a lucky arrangement of pebbles. It was so obvious; I couldn't believe everyone else had missed it. It was almost as if someone had planted it there, and for a moment I even considered whether they had. Was it a toy sword? Had someone left it there as a prank? But the harder I looked, the more genuine it seemed, and I began to feel light-headed. The temptation in moments like this is to grab the find to make it real, but I resisted. This wasn't a toy or a modern replica; I could tell it was old and sensed the time that surrounded it. How old, I wasn't sure, but I knew I had one chance to savour the moment. Most finds lose something the instant they are removed from the mud that can never be replicated on a shelf or in a drawer, so I crouched down in the winter gloaming to spend time with it before I broke the spell.

The hilt of the sword
"Was it a toy sword? Had someone left it there as a prank? But the harder I looked, the more genuine it seemed, and I began to feel light-headed."

The handle and hilt loomed out at me from a small area of gritty sand that thinly covered the mud into which the blade disappeared. What caught my eye was its regular shape and the two lines of twisted gold wire embedded in the dark brown material of the handle. The blade was only just beneath the surface, and I gently cleared away the sand until I felt the end of it with my fingers. Easing my hand carefully underneath, I lifted it free quite easily, leaving a perfect impression of where it had lain for the best part of 500 years in the dark grey mud. I held the sword aloft. Excalibur of the Thames! And looked around, but everyone had gone and there was nobody to share the moment with. The handle looked to be made of wood with a square pommel carved into the end, finished off by a four-petalled flower or quatrefoil in what I assumed was copper alloy. The blade was broken at about eight inches long and was encrusted in a thick layer of mud, pebbles and rust. When iron rusts, it often engulfs whatever is lying next to it in the mud and ends up looking like a giant caddisfly larva case. If it had been a Victorian padlock or an old horseshoe, I would have been tempted to knock the concretion off with a stone, but this was too precious.

The pebbly layer was protecting whatever was underneath and it needed to be preserved. I only had a pair of latex gloves with me, just in case I ended up on the foreshore; other than that I was woefully ill-equipped. Thankfully I had picked up a copy of the Metro free newspaper for the train journey back, which served as some protection for the sword, and my best coat. At home, I wrapped it in wet cloths to keep it damp, sealed it in a plastic bag and quietly hid it at the back of the fridge, hoping Sarah wouldn't notice. By the following Friday it was with the conservation department at the Museum of London.

The sword on the beach
"I lifted it free quite easily, leaving a perfect impression of where it had lain for the best part of 500 years in the dark grey mud."

The museum confirms the handle is made of wood and the inlaid twisted wire, still as bright and shiny as the day the sword was thrown or dropped in the river, is copper alloy. The cross-bar is iron, and the conservationist thinks the blade was broken before it went in the river, so there may be an interesting story behind it. A number of daggers have been found in the Thames with deliberately broken blades. It has been suggested they were dumped by the Cutlers' Company, which had the right to confiscate substandard or foreign blades being sold in London. Perhaps this sword was one such blade, smuggled in from the Continent, confiscated by the Guild and broken on the anvil of a disgruntled swordsmith. According to the museum, the next step is to do an X-ray, which should show up a maker’s mark if there is one. I email the museum to ask how long it's going to take: "We're very busy, and the Museum is moving this year, so it might take a while." If the Museum wants it for its collection my problem will be solved, but if it doesn’t, I will have to find someone or somewhere else to conserve it.

The book cover

A Mudlarking Year: Finding Treasure in Every Season by Lara Maiklem, published by Bloomsbury

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