Time & tide

Mudlarks' finds form intriguing Docklands exhibition

- SIOBHAN MCNALLY

A tiny piece of leather poking out of the riverbed of the Thames turned out to be the find of a lifetime for one treasure hunter.

Unsure of what he had seen, Tom Coghlan got down on his knees in the mud to have a closer look.

He says: "It was an incredibly fragile-looking little piece of leather with what looked like an etching of a flower. I thought maybe it was a purse.

"When I got home, I started to wash the mud off it. And as I did, this knight in armour appeared. That was just a really kind of extraordinary moment. This was the stuff I dreamed of as a six-year old boy obsessed with treasure hunting.

"As I washed, two knights appeared, one of whom was standing on a dragon. I thought, 'Oh, maybe that's St George. By that time, my heart was pounding" The next morning, he took his discovery to the London Museum.

Tom, 49, from Kennington, South London, says: "The museum was able to learn a lot about the book from the wooden binding inside it.

"They discovered it was a cheap, mass-produced book of hours [a type of prayer book] from when William Caxton [the man who brought the printing press to England] was starting to crank out books in real numbers during the reign of Henry VIII.