Museum chiefs are in a race against time to save rare photos of the 'real' Alice in Wonderland so they can be displayed in Bradford.

The photographs taken by author Lewis Carroll of Alice Liddell would be put on display at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (NMPFT) if the bid is successful.

The photographs were sold to American collectors for around £600,000 last June.

But they have been prevented from leaving the country after the Government slapped a temporary export ban on them in response to campaigners' concerns.

The ban has now been extended until May - giving British museums more time to try to buy them back.

Russell Roberts, a curator at the NMPFT, said the ban had been extended by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

"These were photographs that Carroll gave to Alice and her family as a token of gratitude for her inspirational character, and we decided they were of outstanding national importance," he said.

"What we are talking about is securing for the country, through national museums, some of Carroll's most important work."

Mr Roberts said a consortium, including the NMPFT, the National Portrait Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Museum of Oxford, would now try to raise £600,000 to buy the photographs.

If successful, the collection of around a dozen albumen prints would be displayed at both the NMPFT and the National Portrait Gallery. Other museums would also be offered the photographs on a temporary loan basis.

"We have got some donations so far but we still have a long way to go.

"We've got a deferral till May, so that extra few months is extremely helpful," Mr Roberts said.

Carroll was inspired to write what became an internationally-renowned classic children's book after meeting Alice and her two sisters on a river expedition in 1862.

The photographs, which formed part of a private collection from Alice's family estate, were sold last year, along with other Lewis Carroll memorabilia, at auctioneers Sotheby's in London.