On International Women’s Day, we’re celebrating the remarkable Miss May Savidge. May was born in Streatham in 1911 and after leaving school she trained as a draughtswoman at De Havilland’s aircraft factory in Hatfield, where she worked on the design of the Mosquito aircraft. For a time she lived on a waterbus on the river Lea, but in 1947 she purchased a large Tudor building at No 1, Monkey Row in Ware. The house was in need of repair and May set about this, carrying out much of the work herself. But when Ware Urban District Council acquired the building by compulsory purchase for demolition to make way for the planned Relief Road through Ware, May refused to accept the offer of compensation and decided to move her house to another location entirely. Almost singlehandedly she dismantled the house, meticulously numbering every part of it, and had it transported to Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk where she began to rebuild it. Sadly she died just before her 82nd birthday, the house still unfinished but full of her possessions, diaries and other objects. Her niece Christine Adams tells the story of May’s life and her extraordinary quest to rebuild the house she called ‘Ware Hall-House’ in her book ‘Miss Savidge moves her house’; copies of this are available in the museum shop. An episode of the BBC’s ‘Antiques Roadshow’ also featured May’s story, and clips can be viewed on YouTube.