SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL’s first Mudlark-in-Residence is the author Lara Maiklem. The appointment, announced last week, is what is “believed to be the UK’s only permanent mudlarking role within a cultural or heritage organisation”.

Ms Maiklem has worked with the cathedral on projects connected with the Thames since 2019, the year that her book Mudlarking: Lost and found on the River Thames was published by Bloomsbury (Books, 29 November 2019). It became a Sunday Times bestseller.

In her new post, she will continue to develop the relationship with the river and its history. “This will include supporting public engagement programming that connects with the heritage and stories found from the Thames,” the cathedral says.

Interviewed on the cathedral’s podcast by the Sub-Dean, Canon Michael Rawson, Ms Maiklem said that the Thames had always been “a spiritual place. . . Since way before London existed, people have been giving it offerings, hand axes, worked flints in prehistoric times.” Today, she said, there was “a clay pipe from the 1600s lying next to a vape that was thrown in yesterday. That’s the nature of the river: it reflects London.”

The Dean, the Very Revd Dr Mark Oakley, says: “For more than 1,400 years people have arrived here by river, worshipped beside it, traded across it, and crossed it on journeys of pilgrimage. Even our ancient name, St Mary Overie — St Mary ‘over the river’ — reminds us how deeply Southwark Cathedral’s identity is bound to the life of the Thames.

“Lara’s work helps us to connect to our riverine past, enabling us to see the humanity behind the objects that are found on the foreshore. She has become a cherished friend of the cathedral, and we are delighted to recognise her continued contribution through this appointment.”

The cathedral is hosting its sixth annual Heritage Craft and Mudlarking Festival on Saturday 25 July.