Paint-a-Pot Studio, The Wagon Store & The Forge
Paint-a-Pot Studio in Crafty Corner
Make and take home a special momento of your day in the new Paint-a-Pot Studio in Crafty Corner. Be creative by painting your very own art work on our many options of figurines and money box.
Our figurines, money boxes and tiles make an ideal present for you or someone special. The selection is huge, from piggy and football banks, fairies, animals, robots and much much more.
Crafty Corner will be open from 11am to 4.30pm everyday throughout school holidays. Prices start from just £2.50 per item.
Wagon Store
The Wagon Store was purpose-built at Kent Life in 1993 to house the transport collection and the Forge. Exhibits include market wagons, large farm wagons, a merryweather fire engine, a baker's cart, a wheelbarrow, and hand cart, a tip cart, a governess cart, an alley bodge and a bicycle.
Four-wheeled wagons and two-wheeled carts were the principal means of transport on the farm. They were made locally by village wheelwrights and distinctive types were developed in different parts of the country. In Kent there were two types of Wagon; the large Wealden Wagon, usually painted blue and red, and the smaller Heathfield or Ashford Wagon, with a livery of cream and ochre. Both types had brakes and a waistbed to allow the front wheels to turn. Large farm wagons brought the harvests in from the fields. They were also used for carrying heavy root crops, stones, manure and sand and were often pulled by several horses. Market wagons were lighter with narrower wheels and better suspension. They could only be used where road conditions were fairly good. Small tip carts with hinged bodies were used to transport manure and other small loads around the farm.
The Forge
The village Forge was the workplace of the Blacksmith. Blacksmithing was one of the vital crafts of village life, along with the wheelwright, saddler and carpenter, as the blacksmith made tools for these other craftsmen. The most common work in the heyday of blacksmithing was making and mending agricultural tools, providing ironwork for carts and wagons, and making horseshoes for horses. The blacksmith usually worked from a forge which would be situated in the centre of a village. In Kent, iron works were first established in the Weald, using charcoal for fuel. The most skilled blacksmiths were well-paid but most did not receive much money for their labours. However, in a village community where most people would have been labourers, the blacksmith and other craftsmen were looked upon as the artisan elite.
The rise of mass-produced ironwork, and the decline of many of the profitable sidelines such as farming, and the use of horse-drawn wagons, led to the closure of most village blacksmiths. Today blacksmiths still exist and there is large public demand for their high quality ironwork. Blacksmithing has changed little and the same skills still apply. However, hand-operated bellows, which require a second pair of hands, have been replaced by electric fans. Iron is still heated in an anthracite-fuelled fire and worked on the anvil, using hammers, tongs, chisels and vices.
