Edwardian servants' love story told by new collection

He was a valet, she was a kitchen maid and their poignant and doomed Edwardian love story is revealed in an English Heritage collection described as the most significant and biggest donation of objects relating to servants it has ever received.

- Mark Brown

Alf Edwards and Caroline Palmer met more than a century ago because of his passion for photography and desperate need for a warm room to use as a studio. They worked at opposite ends of an imposing country house set in a huge estate with hundreds of employees, and there was little other reason for their paths to cross. But they did - and the pair fell in love and married, despite everyone advising them not to.

The couple's grandson, Gordon Edwards, has donated more than 60 objects including photographs, letters, postcards and personal items such as Edwards' camera, Palmer's gold watch and a handmade engagement present.

The objects document a story that could come from Downton Abbey and adds more widely to our understanding of life at Brodsworth Hall, near Doncaster, a Victorian country house once owned by the Thellusson family.