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Metal Detecting History Podcast

Kenneth Collard: The Detectorists, Metal Detecting & Mudlarking on the Thames

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This week's episode is a special one as its the 100th one! Our guest is very special too....! Actor Kenneth Collard, known to this community as the Mayor from the BBC series The Detectorists, and to a wider audience from Cuckoo, House of the Dragon, The Capture and most recently Beyond Paradise. But Kenneth has been a detectorist since the early 1980s, long before any of those credits, starting out with a basic C-scope in the forests of Germany and chasing that coin-shaped thrill ever since.

During lockdown, Kenneth picked up his Equinox 800 and turned to the Thames foreshore, barely getting his PLA permit before the system closed. He has been learning to read the foreshore ever since, mentored by experienced mudlarks and working alongside his now great friend Carrie from Carry On Larkin.

In this episode Kenneth talks about filming The Detectorists alongside Mackenzie Crook, the tobacco pipe bowl depicting an African man that was displayed in the Museum of London Docklands Secrets of the Thames exhibition alongside a cowry shell Kenneth found at the same moment, and his all-time top find, which has nothing to do with history and everything to do with being in the right place at the right time.

He also shares his plans to develop a mudlarking TV show, talks about the Spanish Ardite minted in Barcelona for a child king and a Peruvian silver two reals found on the same stretch of foreshore, and signs off with one of the most genuinely motivating closers this podcast has had.

Watch the full interview version of this episode from 6:30pm on YouTube at youtube.com/@detectinghistorychannel | Find Detecting History on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel | Use code DHPodcast at Regton.com for 10% off some items.

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