6 metres of glass, delivered by rowing boat

Taggs Island sits in the middle of the Thames, near Hampton Court. There’s no bridge for vehicles. No crane access. No delivery lorry pulling up to the front door. The glass panels for this job crossed the water in a small rowing boat.

The challenge

The house was a bungalow, and the client wanted a 6-metre, two-panel sliding door. On a normal site, that’s a clean job. On an island with no road access, every panel, every component, every tool had to come across by boat. There’s no margin for forgetting something, and no easy way to get a replacement if something arrives damaged. The survey had to be precise, and the panels had to be manufactured to match those dimensions exactly.

Why it mattered to get it right first time

When the cost of a mistake is a return trip across the Thames in a rowing boat, you measure carefully and you build to that measurement. The panels were made to fit the opening, not adjusted on site. That kind of quiet precision is invisible when everything goes well, which is the point.

What it gave the house

A bungalow on a river island, with 6 metres of uninterrupted glass looking out over the Thames. The before photo tells the story of a building that had always been hemmed in. The after is a home where the river feels like part of the living room. The panels glide open and the boundary between inside and the water dissolves. That sense of space, on a small island, changes how the whole house feels.