ImagesBrighton pictures of the week 15-3-2004

IMAGESBRIGHTON photography by david gray
	T H E H O U S E B O A T S O F S H O R E H A M
	P I C T U R E S O F T H E W E E K 1 5 - 3 - 2 0 0 4

Living on a houseboat is the dream of many who want an alternative to the conformity and drabness of so much conventional housing. There are colonies of houseboats all around the country and one of the most colourful and idiosynchratic lies on the bank of the River Adur at Shoreham in Sussex. This has long been the home of musicians and artists, including Hamish McKenzie, whose magnificent boat Verda is pictured below. Rising and falling with the estuarial tide, the floating homes on the Adur range widely in size and style. An enormous ex-naval vessel towers above a barge with leaded windows that would not be out of place in Hampstead Garden Suburb. The Red Ensign flutters in the breeze over a little garden built perilously out from the river bank. Seagulls fly through the wide skies above, while all below is mud. The pictures in this set were all taken in March 2004.

Hamish McKenzie bought the old Portsmouth-Gosport ferry for £150 in 2000 and made it into this magnificent maritime structure (image 2493-59)

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