All aboard! This incredibly-renovated coal barge turned riverboat in St Katharine Docks offers a floating alternative to city living
Complete with a sauna, over 5,000 sq ft of contemporary living space and a large foredeck perfect for entertaining, Matrix Island is 'one of the River Thames most luxurious houseboats.'


In the 1920s, Matrix Island was a steel-construction coal barge chugging down the River Seine; now, with a hull painted pale grey and sporting a natty orange stripe, she’s possibly the most luxurious houseboat on the Thames, floating next to her private pontoon (a rented mooring) at St Katharine’s Docks.
The unique vessel is currently on the market with joint agents Dexters and River Homes for £3 million.
More than 5,000sq ft of accommodation over two levels includes five spacious bedrooms, a walk-in wardrobe, four bathrooms, sauna and a vast open-plan kitchen/dining/living room, plus another sitting room with an unusual hanging log-burner, an office with a view of Tower Bridge and lots of storage areas, not to mention a 50ft fore deck with a retractable glass enclosure, open deck area and a jet ski/tender platform.
Matrix Island was originally converted by a French film producer.
Matrix Island is currently on the market via joint agents Dexters and River Homes for £3 million — see more pictures, or enquire with the agent for further details.
St Katharine Docks: What you need to know
Location: In Central London, just east of the city. Tower Hill Underground offers Circle and District lines, Tower Gateway offers DLR services and London Fenchurch Street offers National Rail services.
Atmosphere: As central London's only marina — and with Tower Bridge and the Tower of London as neighbours, the diverse marina enjoys a thriving waterside community and welcomes vessels from all over the world, and crowds often gather to watch them dock.
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Things to do: Every Friday the dock hosts the World Food Market and there are coffee shops, restaurants and supermarkets within the vicinity.
Schools: Hermitage Primary School and St Peter's London Docks C of E Primary School are two local options. For secondary there is Wapping High School, Mulberry School for Girls and The City of London School.
See more property for sale in the area.
Credit: Strutt and Parker
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Annunciata grew up in the wilds of Lancashire and now lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and an awful pug called Parsley. She’s been floating round the Country Life office for more than a decade, her work winning the Property Magazine of the Year Award in 2022 (Property Press Awards). Before that, she had a two-year stint writing ‘all kinds of fiction’ for The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, worked in internal comms for Country Life’s publisher (which has had many names in recent years but was then called IPC Media), and spent another year researching for a historical biographer, whose then primary focus was Graham Greene and John Henry Newman and whose filing system was a collection of wardrobes and chests of drawers filled with torn scraps of paper. During this time, she regularly gave tours of 17th-century Milton Manor, Oxfordshire, which may or may not have been designed by Inigo Jones, and co-founded a literary, art and music festival, at which Johnny Flynn headlined. When not writing and editing for Country Life, Annunciata is also a director of TIN MAN ART, a contemporary art gallery founded in 2021 by her husband, James Elwes.
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