George Bernard Shaw was 50 years old when he bought 'The Villa' at Ayot St Lawrence in 1906 and characteristically renamed it 'Shaw's Corner'.
The Irish playwright and critic came to Ayot St Lawrence because he had heard that the people there lived a long time.
This was certainly true of Shaw who lived here until his death in 1950 at the age of 94 years old. The house has remained unaltered since that time.
Shaw's Corner is an undistinguished house but it is one of the very few surviving examples of typical middle-class furnishing from Edwardian times to the outbreak of the Second War World and shows the detailed evidence of an extraordinary man and the way he liked to live.
The house is full of mementos of the great playwright. In the hall there is an array of hats, the basket chair where he put shoes on every day, and the bicycling machine on which he used to exercise. At his Bechstein piano Shaw would sing Italian opera to his own accompaniment while air raid sirens wailed over the Ayot St Lawrence.
After drama music was the branch of the arts that meant most to Shaw and he began his literary career as a brilliant music critic.
Shaw's study is the heart of the house. His desk and all his paraphernalia is precisely as he left it. His elaborate filing cabinets and working library are still to hand. On the walls are the photographs of the friends he admired including William Morris, Wickham Stead, Sean O'Casey, Barrie, Sidney Webb and W.B.Yeats. Displayed on an adjacent reading desk is the record of the award of the Nobel Prize Shaw received in 1925.
The adjoining drawing room was Mrs Shaw's province and after her death in 1943 Shaw used it only occasionally when he had visitors. On the desk is a memorial of great interest: his bronze bust by Auguste Rodin.
Shaw used the dining room a good deal. He read for long periods whilst eating his vegetarian meals and in his old age he sat here by the fire listening to the wireless or reading late into the night. On the wall is Shaw's splendid portrait by Augustus John.
There are also pictures of Dublin where Shaw spent his early life and photographs of those who influenced him including Gandhi, Lenin, Stalin and Ibsen. Here too are personal relics: among them Shaw's fountain pen and gold pencil, his steel rimmed spectacles, his admission ticket to the British Museum Reading room for 1880 and his Cyclist's Touring Club membership card for 1950; the year that he died.
From the dining room Shaw would step out into the garden for his regular evening walks. The borders are richly planted and there are fine views over the Hertfordshire countryside.
At the bottom of the garden is a small, revolving summerhouse where Shaw retreated for peace and quiet.
Here he did much of his writing, safe from interruptions, in the wicker chair that is still pulled up the table where he worked. Shaw's ashes were scattered in the garden.
