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Germander Speedwell @GermanderS
Joined September 2012
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Germander Speedwell@GermanderS
8 Jan 2025
Kind followers: I will probably stop posting on Twitter soon (until there's a change of ownership) so please join me instead: on Bluesky - @germanderspeedwell.bsky.social or on Instagram - @thegermanderspeedwell. Bluesky is just like Twitter in design, so takes no time to learn!
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Ooh - is this a complete decorated clay pipe I've found? I'm no longer actively posting on Twitter, so please join me instead on one of the following to see my latest discoveries! Bluesky - @germanderspeedwell.bsky.social Instagram - @thegermanderspeedwell.
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1/2: Ooh, a clay pipe exposed by the receding tide! Follow the thread to see it out of the water....
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2/2: Here it is clean and dry: it's a good length (but not complete) with lovely leaf decoration on the base and seams. The shape dates it to 1850-1910. I've found quite a few pipe fragments with foliage decoration on the base, but never one as intact as this!
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1/2: This ring was the first thing I spotted when I arrived on the foreshore - it was lying on the surface, as if it had just been lost...
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2/2: Most people I've shown it to agree that it's a modern handmade silver ring. It looks like a bespoke design, and not the sort that usually ends up thrown in the river! I wonder what it was doing there...
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1/4: I've picked my twelve favourite mudlarking finds of the year, as follows: 'Dog's Nose' clay pipe A 'heavenly' china fragment Fragment of Prattware pot lid - 'The Net Mender' And five complete clay pipes found within a few months, this being the tiniest and cutest...
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3/4: My 12 favourite Thames foreshore finds of the year, continued: - a superb large china marble - an exquisite Gambier pipe bowl - a fragment of a rare Dutch Jonas pipe from the 1600s - and a very special cup fragment showing a boy with a bubble pipe!
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4/4: Those were my 'favourite' finds - chosen not always because of rarity or importance, but because of happy memories of discovering or researching them, or because they're uncannily perfect fragments or exquisite objects, or they revealed surprising stories or connections.
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Here's some modern surprises I've recently come across on the foreshore: a plastic duck; some false teeth (yes, this is exactly how I found it!!), a plastic dinosaur figurine (posed for the photo), and a fake garlic clove.
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1/2: This chunk of stoneware, found on the foreshore, is from of a Bartmann (bearded man) jug, made in Germany from 1550-1700; like the example on the right. At the top of the fragment you can just see the end of his beard, and most of the cartouche from his belly is intact...
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2/2: I haven't attempted to identify the coat-of-arms on this, but I think I see a lion rampant on the left. The decoration on these Bartmann jugs varied greatly - there's some great examples here: historicjamestowne.org/colle…
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Meet my new friend... a clay pipe bowl which time and the Thames have smoothed down into a perfect hand-held sculpture! He's rather special, so I've made a short video showing how I found him and what I found out about him - you can see it here on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=h2ydYYTD…
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This must be the most fabulous Xmas card of the year! An exquisite illustration of the Herald moth transforming this old newspaper into a songsheet; note today's date at the top left. It's by @mavisbickle - who is now more active on Bluesky, as @mavisbickle.bsky.social.
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Normally when you come across Egyptian Geese on the foreshore, they'll let you know about it with their warning hisses. But these two were so engrossed in their preening, and I was so engrossed in searching, that I nearly walked into them!
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1/3: Aha - a clay pipe emerging from the foreshore - can you tell what design it's going to be? Follow the thread to see if you're right...
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3/3: Here it is after a rinse, and all cleaned up. Clay pipes in the shape of acorns are quite common, but I've not seen one with a steeply angled stem like this before! I also particularly like the textured woody stem and the leaf shape next to the bowl.
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PS - don't worry about that Graphic Content warning unless you actually take alarm at seeing a newly exposed clay pipe. (These warnings happen automatically for most excavation videos; that's AI for you!).
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