© M. Gerrard

There are over one million items in the collections of the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside alone, and all of them will deteriorate over time without the attention of a specialist conservator. Lots of museums have their own conservation department of course, but usually this unglamorous work goes on in backrooms and basements, away from the public gaze.

Not in Liverpool. Here, the 40 people who work to clean and restore museum artefacts and works of art have decided to put their work on show - instead of just admiring the end result, you can see how it is achieved. And within two years of its opening, the Conservation Centre - housed in the highly ornate 1870s building that was once home to the Midland Railway Goods Depot in the heart of Liverpool - has proved such a success that it won a prestigious European Museum of the Year Award.

The opening exhibition, called Caught in Time, is designed to make you start to think like a curator and look at museum exhibits with a conservator's eye. A display case full of odd objects - from dolls to pistols to early vacuum cleaners and radios - begs the question "what do you do and how far do you go to keep these relics of the past in peak condition".

© M. Gerrard

The commentary on the free audio guide is peppered with fascinating trivia and the interactive displays reveal just how much damage is done to objects by light, humidity and pests - there are lots of tips here for looking after your own heirlooms, even if they only consist of a few items of Star Wars or Spice Girl memorabilia that you hope might be valuable one day!

The exhibits illustrate how conservators have re-assembled a crumbling 1st-century Roman bronze brooch, repaired a 10th-century religious ivory from Constantinople (modern Istanbul), and restored such exquisitely delicate items as a Peruvian head-dress made of vividly coloured tropical feathers or an ancestor doll from the Sudan.

Conservators love it when they find an extra surprise that brings an object to life. An elegant pair of early gloves had parchment inserted into the gauntlets as a stiffening material: the parchment turned out to be a recycled legal document written in Latin whose date confirmed that the gloves were made in the early 17th century.

One of the star exhibits is a rare copy of the Mona Lisa, dating from the 16th century. X-rays revealed that it had originally been painted on canvas, and later transferred to a wood panel to make it look more like da Vinci's original. Another popular highlight - this being Liverpool - is the display showing the restoration of two of the Beatles' gold discs which had become tarnished (perhaps they were not true gold!).

The taxidermy exhibits from a cat and mouse to a brightly restored toucan - are also particularly interesting because of the range of munching creepy crawlies that can infest organic materials. And if you are itching to try your hand at a little bit of conservation work yourself, you can try re-assembling the pieces of a broken bowl, sculpting a statue's missing toe from plasticine, or drawing in the missing portion of a painting - just some of the skills that conservators deploy every day.

Upstairs there are audio-visual presentations and a live video link showing conservators at work - you can even talk to them if you take one of the 'Behind-the-Scenes' tours that are given on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. But do be sure to book in advance: they are deservedly popular.