A furniture designer and a writer embark on a new life aboard a houseboat on the Thames
There is a moment, as I am sitting with Matthew King and Katie Hickman drinking tea around their kitchen table, when the room suddenly seems to sway – first one way and then the other. They appear not to notice and carry on chatting, while I feel a little light-headed and spill my tea as I attempt to steady myself.
It is easy to forget that we are in the hull of a boat, which is moored at the foot of Tower Bridge on the Thames. The decoration is slightly Scandinavian in feel, with horizontally planked walls and wood floors painted pale grey and a skylight set into a vaulted ceil-ing. The boat is an early 20th-century Humber keel – a barge that worked Yorkshire’s many wide canals, mainly carrying coal – which was christened Drake when she was built. Inspired by Sir Francis? Or perhaps her duckishly broad and squat shape? Either way, her flat bottom makes her susceptible to disturbances in the water, such as the wake of a passing river bus, which is what we have just been hit by. ‘It does take a little while to get used to,’ says Katie. ‘But we don’t really notice it now.’
Matthew is a designer and maker of bespoke furniture, who had spent 20 or so years living on Dartmoor. He raised his family there while running his business creating kitchens, libraries and clever joinery of all kinds for houses from the West Country to London. But in 2014, newly single and with his five children grown up, Matthew began the process of putting together the next chapter of his life.
‘I’d visited a friend of a friend who had a barge at Tower Bridge Moorings in Bermondsey,’ he explains. ‘I realised I could be based in London again if I lived there. After Dartmoor, it would give me the long sight-lines that I needed to not feel hemmed in.’ He bought the barge – ‘a ruin with potential’ – in Penryn, and spent a year making her seaworthy. This process involved working part time as a welder’s mate to the Cornish metalworker Jason Angove. ‘I can work with most materials, but metal is noisy, heavy and dirty,’ says Matthew. ‘It wants to maim, cut, burn or blind you.’
Once the initial repairs were completed, Matthew loaded Drake with wood and had her towed to London (by someone he refers to as ‘a possible pirate’ from Canvey Island) to start the 18-month project to make her habitable. He was soon dis-abused of any notion that she might be a floating bachelor pad. First, his two daughters – both ‘enduring the penury of poorly paid internships’ – moved in for a short while, sharing the spare room that Matthew had created towards the stern. And then he met Katie, an author who lived in nearby Peckham.
MAY WE SUGGEST: Plain English founder Katie Fontana's cottage and houseboat
Today, Drake is their shared home: a two-bedroom dwelling that feels so much bigger than the sum of its parts. As much as anything, it is a testament to the power of well-designed joinery. In terms of storage – there are drawers under beds and stair treads, concealed cupboards behind most walls and wave-proof shelving for life’s bits and bobs – it is a Tardis. But the utilitarian nature of this is humanised by the sort of comfortable upholstered furniture you would find on terra firma, together with un-precious family antiques and a gallery of characterful paintings on the wall. There is a wood-burning stove and there are vases of f lowers picked in Katie’s garden.
You enter the boat at the rebuilt wheelhouse, a raised and partially glazed cabin of a space, which doubles as Matthew’s studio. ‘Most of the time I just sit here designing, drawing and colouring in… when I’m not gazing out of the window hoping to spot a seal,’ he says. Katie, however, wisely decided to maintain the little writing studio in the garden of her house, which she now rents out. It is there, at the desk she received as a gift for winning a school scholarship, that she has written her nine books to date. Originally a travel writer (who has been a House & Garden contributor), Katie is now best known for exploring historical periods in both fiction and non-fiction.
Katie’s latest book, She-Merchants, Buccaneers & Gentle-women (Virago, £10.99), comes out in paperback later this month. It is a social history of British women in India from the early 17th to the 19th centuries and was named in the New Statesman as a Book of the Year for 2019. Katie hosted its launch at Tower Bridge Moorings, which was established as a mooring in the 19th century and has served as a residential community since the Eighties. It is wonderfully bohemian place – a flotilla of around 60 houseboats connected by a network of Garden Barges that function as walkways with tenants living underneath. The award-winning gardens are open to the public twice a year as part of the National Gardens Scheme. A barge called the Arts Ark serves as the village square or town hall and is a place for locals and their guests to gather, as well as for events such as book launches.
You could say Matthew and Katie have taken to living on this part of the Thames like ducks to water. The local area is vibrant, and their work and families in close proximity. They sit out on the deck and watch the sun set behind Tower Bridge, or take the Thames Clipper down to Greenwich for supper. ‘We make any excuse to see London from the river,’ Matthew says. ‘It gives you such a different perspective.’
‘Please, a special request,’ wrote Matthew when he first got in touch. ‘If you do write about me, could you refrain from any nautical puns? I have heard them all by now. Though, on reflection, the puns are the only downside of my new life’.
Matthew King: matthewkingdesign.co.uk
Katie Hickman: katiehickman.com
Lucas Allen1/16Katie and Matthew on the deck of their Humber keel, Drake, in Bermondsey, an area that is home to a vibrant community of houseboat dwellers.
Lucas Allen2/16The sun setting behind Tower Bridge.
Lucas Allen3/16Drake’s interior was painted in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Ammonite’. Paintings collected from Devon junk shops and auctions fill the walls above Portland stone sculptures carved by Matthew.
Lucas Allen4/16The mirror in the sitting area is an early piece by Matthew, made from gesso on wood with a burnished graphite and gilded finish. The brightly coloured rug belonged to his parents. Vases are filled with flowers from Katie’s garden in Peckham.
Lucas Allen5/16Drake’s kitchen has a rosewood table and colourful chairs.
Lucas Allen6/16Pale paintwork and a large skylight bring an airiness to the kitchen. Drawers in the staircase provide additional storage
Lucas Allen7/16An alcove in the spare room frames a sculpture by Matthew in Carrara marble.
Lucas Allen8/16A Sixties painting bought on Ebay hangs above Katie’s dressing table.
Lucas Allen9/16The wheelhouse now serves as Matthew’s design studio
Lucas Allen10/16Matthew and his granddaughter Eva on one of the barge roof gardens at Tower Bridge Moorings.
Lucas Allen11/16For this house in Notting Hill, Matthew created built-in joinery in oak with brass drawer fronts, as well as a dining table in oak and patinated steel.
Lucas Allen12/16The decorator, Catherine Connolly of Northwick Design, is a long-time collaborator
Lucas Allen13/16Katie has written nine books in her studio in Peckham.
Lucas Allen14/16Matthew and Katie walking to Vinegar Yard, a street-food market in Bermondsey.
Lucas Allen15/16Lunch at Vinegar Yard with a friend, the fashion designer Kate Barton.
Lucas Allen16/16The launch party for Katie’s latest book on the Arts Ark at Tower Bridge Moorings.
