Are clay pipe laying around the Thames?

[gmww]

My other hobby is photography so I was surprised to see this post by another photographer who has been finding clay pipes in the Thames.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/72157606346196085/

 

[Charles D. Prokopp]

Considering that people have been living there for a few thousand years, and tossing their cr-p into it all that time, strolling Thames-side can be rewarding to amateur antiquarians. (That's us, guys.) After all, that's where the Mary Rose was sunk some 500 years ago, and look at all the goodies that were salvaged from Harry's flagship!

 

[Audubon]

They are scattered about every American colonial town, fort and house site too; in various lengths and diameters and in countless numbers. I find dozens of pipe fragments, without any effort, in my yard every month.

They are valuable dating tools in my profession.
http://www.apva.org/exhibit/pipedate.html

http://www.nps.gov/archeology/afori/howfig_mar4.htm
http://www.apva.org/resource/jjrc/vol2/monroe_high.pdf

 

[TFoley]

...Thames-side can be rewarding to amateur antiquarians...After all, that's where the Mary Rose was sunk some 500 years ago, and look at all the goodies that were salvaged from Harry's flagship!

Dear Sir - please allow me to correct your assertion made above. The 'Mary Rose' did NOT sink in the Thames, but in the Solent, some 120 miles south-west of London, and off the south coast of England. :hmm:

I am fully aware that many of you 'over there' consider the island of Britain to be only slightly larger than your backyard, but such a statement as yours cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. :wink:

Best wishes

tac

 

[2172]

about 20 years ago, I had a spare Saturday in London and on the advice of the boarding house keeper, went to the London Museum. A great display of stuff found in the mud of the Thames...everything from Roman swords to Viking weapons and on up...back in the mid 1800's, London finally got fed up with frequent flooding of parts of the town, and built what is called "the Embankment" which involved dredging, and putting the dredged material on the bank to raise it. Much of the museum stuff came through this...Hank

 

[gmww]

Thanks guys. I think it would be fascinating to come across such artifacts in my neck of the woods. Of course Europe has a longer history therefore more to possibly dig up or stumble across. :thumbsup:

 

[Don Robertson]

A friend of mine who lives just outside London says that at low tide you can walk along the banks of the river and find pipes and pipe fragments in the mud. Granted, you may not find one that's in as good a shape as the one in your photo, but people find them all the time.

 

[Charles D. Prokopp]

Right you are, my apologies. Though I have better knowledge of the world outside America than some of my compatriots, I have a memory that sometimes confuses Budapest with Bucharest. :hatsoff:

 

[TFoley]

Thanks guys. I think it would be fascinating to come across such artifacts in my neck of the woods. Of course Europe has a longer history therefore more to possibly dig up or stumble across. :thumbsup:

That, Sir, has to be the understatement of the week. My local church is Anglo-Saxon [built around 900AD, and I go to it over a stone bridge that was built in 1200AD.

300 yards from where I live there used to be a Roman cattle market at the crossroads, and the road itself was built by the Romans in around 90AD.

Just up the road is Flag Fen, a World Heritage site, which has literally tons of evidence of occupational activity from around 1800BC to around 500BC.

The landscape around here, and UK and Ireland in general, makes us all seem as flitting as mayflies - here for a day, and then gone.

tac

 

[TFoley]

Right you are, my apologies. Though I have better knowledge of the world outside America than some of my compatriots, I have a memory that sometimes confuses Budapest with Bucharest. :hatsoff:

Me too. :thumbsup:

Best wishes

tac