My introduction to the eponymous ‘tiresome lady architect’ is fixed in my mind. She was, I was told, a vicar’s wife who had once built a house without stairs. The factual information I was given as a starting point for my role as a researcher in a U3A Shared Learning Project was:
Mrs Dott, the vicarage, Woodside, SE25.
But these morsels were all I needed to set me off on six years of research about this fascinating woman. Yes, a vicar’s wife; yes, she had built a house (but was it without stairs?); and actually she built seventeen houses and two church rooms; and in 1920 she was living in the vicarage, Woodside, which is in south London.
Early in the research I made contact with a fellow researcher from Dringhouses, York, a local historian who had become fascinated during her researches into the former vicar of her local church, by his interesting wife. And so Dorothy and I began our joint venture to find out all we could about Annabel, eventually deciding that we should spread her story more widely by writing a book.
Several months of unproductive contact with the most likely, as we thought, publishers, and a chance conversation with a local contact who had written a self published book led me to Self Publishing Partnership. Six months of being guided through the process by our editor and we had books in our hands. We were so pleased with the control we had had over the presentation and style of the book and, for myself, perhaps the most pleasing part of the process was the thorough proof reading: how I wished I could have hugged the woman who went through the manuscript identifying every short hyphen (used to hyphenate words) that my Mac computer had used in place of the longer one needed in sentences. My written style certainly used many of these and of course I now realise that I can type the correct length hyphen myself!
The quality of the book has received at least as many positive comments as the content. Book lovers just appreciate the feel of a book in their hands and so the extra money we paid for the quality of the paper and the soft cover with flaps was well spent. In a book about people and places the clarity of the photos is especially important and happily the quality of our fifty or so images was excellent. We also much appreciated the role of an artist in shaping up our initial ideas for the cover.
Annabel had been called ‘tiresome’ in a letter written to Eton College in 1931 and the use of the word in our title was intended to act as a intriguing hook for those browsing books, but in our minds she was tireless, even at the end of her life fighting her corner in correspondence with the church authorities and submitting her final architectural drawing for a new rectory in Winterslow, Wiltshire. We are so pleased to have made a small contribution to spreading awareness of her work.
-Lynne Dixon
Read more about ‘That Tiresome Lady Architect’ here
