VISITORS to photographer Edward Chambré Hardman’s city home will find themselves transported back to the 1940s to mark the 70th anniversary of the Liverpool blitz.

The National Trust, which owns the Rodney Street property, is putting on a wartime-themed exhibition to give a glimpse of the Hardmans’ lives during the period.

Staff and volunteers will be dressed in 1940s-style costume, while memorabilia and wartime music will add to the atmosphere.

The event is being held to coincide with the May, 1941, blitz on Liverpool when the city saw its heaviest consecutive nights of bombing during World War II.

For Hardman, business was booming. As photography was a reserved occupation, he spent the war taking pictures of servicemen and women who were about to leave for war-torn Europe and wanted a keepsake for their families back home.

When he was not taking photographs, he worked as an ARP Warden.

At the time, Hardman’s photographic studio was at 51a, Bold Street, while he and his wife lived in a first- floor flat at 53, Hope Street. Many items of memorabilia relating to the war were kept by the Hardmans and transferred to 59, Rodney Street, where they moved in 1948.

Sarah-Jane Langley, who is custodian of the Hardmans’ house, said: “They never threw anything away – so, for example, we still have Hardman’s ARP helmet and gas mask.