Blacksmith's living room, Staffordshire County Museum, Shugborough

Description:The reconstructed sitting room from Mr Charles Woodward's house at Wallash, Mayfield. This room was part of the Museum's displays between 1976 and 2005.

Charles Woodward was born in 1889 and lived all his life next to the smithy at 22 Wallash in Mayfield. When he died in 1974 the smithy and his living room were collected by the Staffordshire County Museum and moved to Shugborough.

He was a bachelor and a deeply religious man - he never worked on Sunday. His working day began at 6 in the morning and finished at 5.30 in the afternoon. In his spare time he read his Bible, bred pigeons and tended his garden.

Mr Woodward was one of the few blacksmiths to keep working after the 1940s, when tractors and factory made tools and machines made the blacksmith's skills obsolete.
He kept working by doing general ironwork in the village; making tools, kitchen equipment, hinges and so on. He made most of the ironwork for the local sewage works and regularly repaired looms at Bond's textile mills in Alrewas.