Fine arts members visited by lecturer

As an historian who has lectured widely around the country, he has contributed to many television and radio programmes, the most recent being Time Team.

In 1993 he published his first book, The Origins of Beowulf and the pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia, now in its fourth print run.

He gave an assessment of the recently discovered Mercian royal treasures from Staffordshire and their relation to the artistic wonders found aboard the Sutton Hoo ship-burial from Suffolk - a central theme was the superb jewellery of gold, garnet and blue glass, which revealed a brilliant synthesis of styles from Britain and the Continent in what was known as the Dark Ages circa 700-800AD.