That Tiresome Lady Architect

At a time when female architects were still as rare as hen's teeth, a seemingly unlikely entrant to the profession, a middle-aged vicar's wife - Annabel Dott, was taking tentative steps on building projects in South Africa. A few years later she built ten houses in a North Yorkshire moorland village. Intended at first as holiday lets nine of the houses were then donated for the use of disabled officers of the First World War, which she claimed as the first completed scheme of its kind in the country. Annabel Dott went on to write at length about schemes for disabled soldiers, rural reconstruction and labour saving for women before embarking on her second ambitious and innovative building project in East Sussex. Other projects included a couple of church buildings and the renovation of houses including vicarages and rectories. At one point she aligned herself with a project to provide accommodation for single professional women. For more than thirty years and in five different parishes her marriage to Revd Patrick Dott provided both opportunities and support through personal and parish difficulties. Tiresome or tireless, she was a woman of determination and vision.