Lovers of social history won't have to dig deep to explore Britain's most intriguing time capsule: just walk through the front door of a 1790s townhouse in Liverpool's Rodney Street.
At No59, the home and studio of society portrait and landscape photographer Edward Chambre Hardman and his wife, Margaret, nothing has changed for 50 years.
The Hardmans were so busy writing love letters to each other (there are hundreds) and with their work of photographing the city's better-off denizens, they found little or no time to clean, dust or throw anything away.
As a result, this narrow, creaking building and its treasures - saved for posterity by the quick-thinking Hardman Trust and a local newspaper campaign, and cleaned, catalogued and restored by the National Trust at a cost of #1 million ($14.8 million) - is more time-travelling Tardis than time capsule.
The house and studio are the site of the only known photographic practice of the 20th century from which the artist's entire output has been preserved, together with his home, personal and business papers. That means 142,000 black-and-white prints and negatives from Hardman's collection, cameras, lights, darkrooms, dishes and chemicals in the studio, which began operating in 1948. Scattered around are Hardman's better prints, including portraits of Ivor Novello and Margot Fonteyn, and his famed Birth of the Ark Royal - a shot of the aircraft carrier painted white for its 1950 launch.
Memorabilia line the shelves and cupboards: false teeth, old sun lotion, Barker & Dobson chocolate eclairs, silk stockings (in unopened packets or darned), a plastic bucket, a tin of bacon dated 1947, unopened wedding presents, soap, hairnets, ration cards and tins of egg powder.
