TELEVISION presenter and professor Mark Horton has visited the Harwich Mayflower Project for a special lecture.

Professor Horton, a maritime and historical archaeologist, presents the popular BBC television series Coast.

He visited the project’s Mayflower Heritage building, in George Street, last week to give a talk to an audience of invited guests about the Mayflower voyages in the context of early English colonisation of the Americas.

Professor Horton enjoyed a tour of the project on his arrival and said that he was “amazed” with what it had achieved so far.

“This was an excellent example of how a community can pull together and achieve great things – this is clearly an international project,” he said.

Also joining the project for the evening were special guests from the HMS Victory Museum, which included Gordon Frickers, official HMS Victory artist, HMS Victory author and historian Peter Goodwin, and Katie Goodwin, archivist, historian and archaeologist.

A spokesman from the Mayflower Project who organised the events said: “The Victory delegation stayed in Harwich for the whole of the weekend and experienced the town’s key attractions.

The group enjoyed the excellent hospitality of the Pier Hotel followed by a unique viewing of Harwich carvings, as well as a dynamic tour of the LV18 Lightship and Pirate Radio Museum.

“Gordon then gave a presentation of his art work to include seascapes and landscapes.

“This was followed by a river trip on the Harwich Foot Ferry, this enabled Gordon to sketch Harwich from the water for a future project.”

The group later enjoyed the hospitality of the Old Courthouse, Great Bromley, and a tour of Harwich Redoubt Fort.

Professor Horton has presented and contributed to a number of television programmes, including BBC’s Time Flyers and he was also involved with Channel 4’s Time Team.

The Mayflower Project aims to build an identical ship to the Mayflower, which sailed the pilgrim fathers to America in 1620, which will retrace the historic journey as part of the Mayflower 400 anniversary celebrations and then become a tourist attraction moored in Harwich.