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For over 4 decades, Edward Chambré Hardman, the renowned portrait and landscape photographer, lived and worked at his home and studio at 59 Rodney Street, a smart Georgian house in one of the grandest streets in Liverpool.
Both Edward Hardman (1898-1988) and his wife Margaret (who died in 1970) were accomplished photographers.
Their combined archive, containing thousands of photographs, prints, negatives, letters and business records, including portraits, representations of the British landscape and iconic shots of post-war Liverpool. is now being 'seen' for the first time.
Hardman's huge collection was passed to the National Trust along with his home in 2003.
The Trust is working hard to preserve this substantial archive and earlier this month released some of Hardman's 16,000 photographs and negatives; this landmark event coincided with 'World Photography Day' on 19 August.
Painstaking efforts to preserve and digitise the collection started in 2019, but efforts were hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic; it has been a race against time to catalogue everything before the collection deteriorates further.
And the connection with the Cheshire Sandstone Ridge you ask? Several photographs already released show areas of the Ridge — Helsby Hill; Peckforton; Burwardsley; Beeston Castle and Tattenhall.
Historically, the Ridge has attracted artists, architects, writers, stonemasons, poets and more, all of whom have marvelled at the landscape .Hardman and parts of his photographic archive, should surely be considered as representative of British landscape photography.