At our May meeting we heard the story of a most remarkable woman, May Savidge, and her medieval house, told by her niece-in-law, Christine Adams.
In 1947 May bought the back half of an old house, No 1 Monkey Row in Ware, Herts, the other half of which was a bakery. In 1960 the council bought the bakery for road widening and wished to buy the remainder to demolish the entirety. Careful architectural research revealed that the building was an historically significant timber-framed medieval hall house dating from 1450. After some negotiations finally gave their half to Miss Savidge.She had previously acquired a building plot at Wells-next-the Sea, and was determined to save her home by moving it there. An engineer by training she single-handedly set about dismantling the building piece by piece, numbering each element and even making rubbings of the brick bonds. Eleven lorry loads of beams and other materials made their way to Wells.
With a foundation constructed by a local builder to her precise measurements, and while living in a caravan on the site, she began the task of rebuilding, occasionally calling on the help of local fisherman at low tide. She was not afraid to work alone high on the scaffolding when aged over 70, Sadly she succumbed to cancer aged 82 before the task was finished, but left the property in her will to her family on condition they finished the job.
During all this time her personal papers were filed in date order in the appropriate page of the Radio Times. An obsessive but very disciplined hoarder, she kept everything – milk bottle tops, match-boxes containing all the used matches, sweet wrappers and more. Now such material is eagerly sought by collectors of ephemera and generates funds to finish the rebuilding. Christine now has rent-free use of the house and continues to work on the garden.
Paul Atterbury featured the story on the Antiques Road Show, and it will soon be the subject of a film starring Julie Walters.