Alex wins Robin Wood Changemaker Award 2025

Blacksmith Alex Sowden has won the second annual Robin Wood Changemaker Award, supported by the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation, including a £1,000 prize awarded at a special presentation at Wentworth Woodhouse on Monday 17 November 2025.

The award celebrates a maker whose unwavering dedication makes a lasting change to a heritage business, craft or sector in ways that will reverberate for years to come. It is dedicated to Heritage Craft’s first Chair Robin Wood MBE, who, prior to co-founding the organisation in 2010, revived the craft of pole-lathe bowl turning after seeing the lathe of the last maker George Lailey at the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading. Today pole-lathe bowl turning is on an upturn and was recently taken off the Red List, and Robin has turned his attention to toolmaking.

Alex Sowden is an award-winning blacksmith whose expertise has been recognised through appearances on television shows such as Sky Arts’ The Prince’s Master Crafters. He has used his skills to forge metal for the Ukrainian army, demonstrating an ethical framework and global civic duty to his young students. His pioneering policy of allowing accompanied minors onto his basic courses, gives teens real-world experience at the anvil, working with high-temperature metal in a commercial, yet safe and controlled environment – helping young people discover their abilities, overcome adversity and develop their self-esteem.

The Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation supports innovative people working in field-based science, art and craft, teaching and protection of the natural world.

Photo: Alex Sowden, blacksmith and winner of the 2025 Robin Wood Changemaker Award, and Robin Wood MBE, Heritage Crafts Co-Founder. Photo by Robert Wade.