Moored not far from Hampton Court  Palace, the houseboat Astoria has been used for a number of Pink Floyd projects, as well as for many of David Gilmour’s own.

 

Astoria is a grand houseboat, built in 1911 for impresario Fred Karno, and adapted as a recording studio in the 1980s by its new owner, Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour. It is moored on the River Thames at Hampton, Greater London. Gilmour purchased the boat in 1986, because he "spent half of his life in recording studios with no windows, no light, but on the boat there are many windows, with beautiful scenery on the outside".

 

Gilmour bought the boat after seeing it advertised for sale in a copy of Country Life magazine in his dentist's waiting room, just a short while after admiring it while being driven past its moorings.

 

Parts of each of the last two Pink Floyd studio albums, A Momentary Lapse Of Reason andThe Division Bell, were recorded on the boat, as were parts of Gilmour's most recent solo album, On an Island. It was also used for mixing the Pink Floyd live albums Delicate Sound of Thunder and Pulse as well as the Pulse film, Gilmour's Remember That NightDVD and his 2008 live album, Live in Gdansk.