Isleworth riverside
Cathja
The Cathja is a fully converted and fully mobile 38 metre Dutch Barge. Situated on an idyllic Thames mooring in Old Isleworth, the barge provides space for people who have experienced mental health problems to explore their creativity in a safe and supported environment.
Users determine their own frequency and duration of their involvement. There is no expectation to 'produce' so objects created are not judged, analysed or sold. The creation of objects, whether utilitarian or 'artistic', is an inherently healing and restorative process.
The Cathja service has achieved outstanding results in enabling people to grow away from the dependent, patient role.
The Cathja barge history:
The Cathja is a 38 metre Dutch Barge. She was probably built in the 1930s and her working life would have been on the canals and rivers of Europe. She is not a sea going vessel although many of the inland seas in Holland are such that she had to be able to negotiate rougher conditions than the barges that traded on English canals.
Cathja would have been operated as a family business with a husband and wife team, possibly with their children, leading a somewhat itinerant life. It is likely that the name Cathja is derived from a combination of the names of the skipper and his wife. Living accommodation was minimal and restricted to the back cabin so that the maximum area was given over to the hold for carrying cargo. The sorts of cargo carried would have included grain, fertiliser, coffee beans etc.
The back cabin remains with many original features and currently provides the office space for the charity. The wheel house is a more recent addition and is the 'tea room' for the activity. As the barge is fully mobile, the tea room also accommodates the ship's wheel and all the instrumentation. The wheelhouse is collapsible in order to negotiate the low bridges that are often found on the smaller waterways.
After being 'decommissioned' the Cathja had several short term owners, including a British gentleman who intended to convert her for use as a floating restaurant. This last project foundered as Cathja was damaged by rough seas in the Channel and was rescued and brought to a mooring on the Thames where she lay largely uncared for. She was purchased in an almost derelict state by the charity in 1996.
A mooring was found for her in Isleworth, being the historic wharf where coastal trade took place. The original crane used for unloading still stands as a monument to this phase of the area's history
* All Saints' Church is the oldest parish church in Isleworth in the London Borough of Hounslow in south-west London.
Its 14th-century Kentish ragstone tower and foundations are the only pre–20th-century parts to survive.[1] It faces the Thames before Church Street skirts away from the river to pass Syon Park. The parish itself is pre-Norman. A vicar replacing its rector is recorded in 1290 in records associated with Syon Abbey who gave his family £2 and a new robe each year and daily meat and drink at the upper table in the abbey hall, while his servant was to be fed at the grooms' table. The patron of the church became the trustees of St George's Chapel, Windsor, due to the dissolution of the monasteries.[2] By the end of the 17th century, Sir Christopher Wren was approached to draw plans for a new body of a much-dilapidated building. His project was deemed too expensive until 1705, when Sir Orlando Gee (MP), of Syon Hill in the parish, left £500 towards the work in his will; he is commemorated in a marble monument by Francis Bird.[3] This sum, combined with funds raised through subscriptions, ensured that the work took place (with modifications) in 1705–1706.
Isleworth riverside
Cathja
The Cathja is a fully converted and fully mobile 38 metre Dutch Barge. Situated on an idyllic Thames mooring in Old Isleworth, the barge provides space for people who have experienced mental health problems to explore their creativity in a safe and supported environment.
Users determine their own frequency and duration of their involvement. There is no expectation to 'produce' so objects created are not judged, analysed or sold. The creation of objects, whether utilitarian or 'artistic', is an inherently healing and restorative process.
The Cathja service has achieved outstanding results in enabling people to grow away from the dependent, patient role.
The Cathja barge history:
The Cathja is a 38 metre Dutch Barge. She was probably built in the 1930s and her working life would have been on the canals and rivers of Europe. She is not a sea going vessel although many of the inland seas in Holland are such that she had to be able to negotiate rougher conditions than the barges that traded on English canals.
Cathja would have been operated as a family business with a husband and wife team, possibly with their children, leading a somewhat itinerant life. It is likely that the name Cathja is derived from a combination of the names of the skipper and his wife. Living accommodation was minimal and restricted to the back cabin so that the maximum area was given over to the hold for carrying cargo. The sorts of cargo carried would have included grain, fertiliser, coffee beans etc.
The back cabin remains with many original features and currently provides the office space for the charity. The wheel house is a more recent addition and is the 'tea room' for the activity. As the barge is fully mobile, the tea room also accommodates the ship's wheel and all the instrumentation. The wheelhouse is collapsible in order to negotiate the low bridges that are often found on the smaller waterways.
After being 'decommissioned' the Cathja had several short term owners, including a British gentleman who intended to convert her for use as a floating restaurant. This last project foundered as Cathja was damaged by rough seas in the Channel and was rescued and brought to a mooring on the Thames where she lay largely uncared for. She was purchased in an almost derelict state by the charity in 1996.
A mooring was found for her in Isleworth, being the historic wharf where coastal trade took place. The original crane used for unloading still stands as a monument to this phase of the area's history
* All Saints' Church is the oldest parish church in Isleworth in the London Borough of Hounslow in south-west London.
Its 14th-century Kentish ragstone tower and foundations are the only pre–20th-century parts to survive.[1] It faces the Thames before Church Street skirts away from the river to pass Syon Park. The parish itself is pre-Norman. A vicar replacing its rector is recorded in 1290 in records associated with Syon Abbey who gave his family £2 and a new robe each year and daily meat and drink at the upper table in the abbey hall, while his servant was to be fed at the grooms' table. The patron of the church became the trustees of St George's Chapel, Windsor, due to the dissolution of the monasteries.[2] By the end of the 17th century, Sir Christopher Wren was approached to draw plans for a new body of a much-dilapidated building. His project was deemed too expensive until 1705, when Sir Orlando Gee (MP), of Syon Hill in the parish, left £500 towards the work in his will; he is commemorated in a marble monument by Francis Bird.[3] This sum, combined with funds raised through subscriptions, ensured that the work took place (with modifications) in 1705–1706.