Join writers Tom Chivers and Lara Maiklem as they uncover and reclaim stories from the earth upon and around which our city is built
[ID: Grainy black and white image showing a solitary man dressed in black walking on the Thames bank at low tide, carrying a long pole over his shoulder]
Doors: 7:00pm
Tickets £8 [£7 concession]
[Please note that visitors are required to wear a face mask during events and we encourage all visitors to take a Lateral Flow Test before coming to the Horse Hospital.]
For almost ten years, Salon for the City has convened monthly to bring together authors, historians, artists or cultural commentators, talking on themes ranging across culture, literature, history, and beyond - but there is only ever one subject: London.
In this, the 93rd iteration of the salon, writers Lara Maiklem and Tom Chivers come together for a deep dive into the depths of the city, celebrating urban edgelands: in-between spaces where the natural world and the metropolis collide…
The mudlark was born amongst the filth and chaos of Victorian London. These poor creatures were scavengers, wading through the foul-smelling mud to collect anything they could sell, such as rags, coal and rope. Most of the original mudlarks were children and old people, society's most vulnerable, but these days they are a band of searchers that scour the foreshore of the River Thames for objects that tell the forgotten tales of history.
We learn how it is often the smallest of objects that tell the greatest stories as London’s premier mudlarker Lara Maiklem leads us through the city's history of mud.
Meanwhile, writer Tom Chivers takes us on a trip along hidden pathways, to explore lost islands and uncover 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…
Lara Maiklem is the author of Sunday Times bestseller Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames and A Field Guide to Larking: Beachcombing, Mudlarking, Fieldwalking and More. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and has a following of over 200k across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter where she posts posts her finds - the good, the bad and the ugly as London Mudlark.
Tom Chivers is a writer, publisher, arts producer and award winning poet. He has made perambulatory, site-specific and audio work for organisations including LIFT, Cape Farewell, Humber Mouth and Southbank Centre. His non-fiction debut, London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City (Doubleday, 2021) was audio book of the week in The Times.