These photographs, mostly taken in the C18th and C19th private courtyard houses and palaces in the Old City of Damascus offer a poignant reminder and glimpse into a vanished era in which dazzling beauty can be recognised, immediately, in the quality and intricate work of the painted ceilings, wooden wainscoting, stone carving, stucco relief, tile design and, essentially, the architecture that houses these wonders. Now no longer readily accessible they capture a unique moment.

In the late 1990s I enjoyed a happy collaboration with the writer Brigid Keenan, whose husband, a diplomat, had been posted to Damascus.

Very soon Brigid, as she writes, ‘found myself in love with Damascus.’

She was captivated by the Old City a beguiling labyrinthine maze of narrow streets and alleys; its souks exploding with vendors selling spices, herbs, sacks of dried flower petals, vegetables and fruit, nuts, dates and flat breads hot from clay ovens. Young boys weave through chaotic crowds bearing trays of small glasses of tea, barrows laden with plants or building materials negotiate tiny passages with seeming ease. Men in turbans squeeze pomegranate juice, falafel and shawarma cafes abound. Above all there is a seductive atmosphere, an aroma in whatever section of the souk you are passing through, be it carpets, leather, perfume or coffee, giving the whole an exotic sense of another world.

But behind this there is a hidden secret which Brigid discovered when she was taken by a friend to a nondescript doorway in a back street. She takes up the story.