The Anne Marie Houseboat for sale

When we decided to renovate the Anne Marie in 2006, she was in a bit of a sorry state with much of the original external fixtures and fittings badly corroded, rotten or missing. During a period where Lynda was out of the country for several months the copper water pipes down below developed small areas of corrosion from the salt air and eventually punctured. The resulting water damage was very extensive, and made the hull area of the Anne Marie uninhabitable. Ceilings collapsed, holes appeared in the walls where there was a constant flow of water against them and many of the flooring timbers began to rot. Pumps worked for hours to empty all the water from the hull but too late for much to be saved.

Lynda recalls the day that Pete first set eyes on the Anne Marie:

"In those days there was a hatch covering the top of the stairs to hide away the devastation in the hull. The only reason I had to go down there was to put coal in the solid fuel boiler at the bottom of the stairs to give hot water and heating. Bags of coal were piled up against the side of the hull and the 'carpet' had a thick layer of coal dust over it. Before I went off to work I told Pete that under no circumstances was he to go down there. At lunchtime Pete came to meet me from work and I took one look at his face and immediately knew he had defied my instructions."

Pete's recollection of the same day:

"Lynda went off to work leaving instructions that I was not to go downstairs as she wanted to be there when I did. I stood looking out of the window at the gorgeous view of the river and decided it was ridiculous not to go and see what was down in the hold of the Anne Marie, how bad could it be?

I lifted the hatch over the stairs (more like a ladder)  and descended into the gloom. There were no working lights so I went back up and got a torch. Lynda had told me it was bad down there but it far surpassed my expectations. Ducking under the low concrete beams that threatened to scalp me at every turn, I found devastation everywhere I went. Whole sheets of plasterboard ceiling had collapsed and were hanging precariously and there was major evidence of damp and mould. At one point my foot nearly went through the floor which I realised was totally rotten. I vividly remember a pink bed where half of the mattress was totally black with mould. At some point there had obviously been a fire in a kitchen area and the walls and ceiling were black with soot. In some places there had been attempts made to remove some of the timbers and conduct repairs, however this only added to a scene reminiscent of the Blitz.

In a daze I went back up the stairs, closed the hatch and sat down in shock. After a calming cup of tea I decided to go back down, ignore everything I'd seen and try and come up with a plan of how we could actually turn a sows ear into a silk purse. This time I simply looked at the immovable part of the barge and realised that once everything had been cleared out there were definite possibilities. I came back upstairs feeling a lot happier.

I then turned my attentions to the flat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " 

One thing we were certain of was that we wanted to ensure that whatever we did was sympathetic to the original design. Use the links to view the picture galleries of the works progress to completion.