Walk through the doors at 18 Folgate Street and step into another century. Founded by the late Dennis Severs and run today by his friend David Milne, this 18th century silk weavers house is a time-machine filled with the sights, smells and sensations of a lost world. It's like nothing you've experienced before, and it was the main inspiration for my book.

"Joseph stood on his toes and looked through one of the glowing windows. A magnificent fire burned brightly in the fireplace, and a sparkling chandelier ringed with candles hung from the ceiling. On a shiny black table beneath the chandelier were tall, glimmering white tapers, a pair of silver pitchers, a few sets of crystal goblets, and the half eaten remains of a lavish dinner...Joseph felt as if someone had taken a pair of scissors and cut into the fabric of the street, pulling it back to reveal a hidden nineteenth-century world, waiting just beneath the freezing twentieth-century surface."

Visit the DENNIS SEVERS' HOUSE at
18 Folgate Street, Spitalfields, London, E1 6BX
http://www.dennissevershouse.co.uk