An eight-year old girl from Saffron Walden who collects pieces of china, bones and oyster shells from her mudlarking on The Thames, will appear in the new series of The Antiques Roadshow.

Saffron Walden Reporter: MatildaMatilda (Image: Archant)

Matilda Kane, a pupil at St Mary’s School, took her boxes of finds along to Audley End on May 26 when the BBC was filming the programme at the stately home.

Once they spotted her, the film crews introduced the youngster to jewellery expert Geoffrey Munn, not because Matilda’s finds are valuable – he usually looks at items such as Faberge eggs - but because Geoffrey shares the mudlarking hobby and also began at the age of eight.

Matilda and her mum, Trine have been going to the banks of the river Thames in Bermondsey for the past year.

Matilda said: “I went to a sleepover at a friends and I saw on the table there were loads of mudlarking stuff, pottery and bones and clay pipes and I thought it was interesting. My mum knows a lot about things, she can tell what they are, she watches a lot of documentaries.”

Pointing to a tiny piece of blue and white crockery, Matilda said: “Geoff said one of my pieces of china is actually from China.”

Geoffrey told Matilda that the tiny fragment was probably part of an elegant piece made in China and sold in a London shop such as Selfridges or Harrods before being broken and eventually dumped in the waste tip of the London river.

Matilda in conversation with Geoffrey will be featured on the first programme of the new series of the Antiques Roadshow on Sunday, September 4. Audley End will take up the first two episodes of the series, the second part will be shown on the following Sunday on September 11.

Matilda will be watching with her parents, Trine and Heath, and brother Oskar aged 11. It will also be watched overseas by family in Denmark and Australia.

The Antiques Roadshow is on BBC1 at 8pm.