New Blue Plaque honours pioneering Sussex archaeologist who uncovered the secrets of prehistoric Sussex

Dr Eliot Cecil Curwen, known as Cecil, carried out the first excavations at The Trundle, near Chichester, in 1927, to explore the Neolithic enclosure on the Iron Age hillfort.

He also led digs at Chanctonbury, Cissbury Ring, Blackpatch, the flint mines on Harrow Hill and at Caburn, where he continued Augustus Pitt Rivers' work.

His story was uncovered by Richard Bianco after a surprise visit from Dr Curwen's daughter to his home in Medina Villas, Hove, and, after much research, a Blue Plaque was unveiled to honour him on Saturday, June 21.

Richard said: "Dr Curwen helped to establish the foundations of modern archaeology. He worked on The Trundle, just outside Goodwood, and Harrow Hill. He was the president of Worthing Archaeology Society in the 1920s and 1930s.

"I happen to live where he lived. I organised it but I had to get approval from the Brighton and Hove Blue Plaque Society and present to them all my findings.

"About five years ago, I had a visit from his daughter Elizabeth, who was born here and lived here with her sister Ruth. I didn't know her, she came knocking at the door at the age of 93 and asked to see the house again. It was completely different in her day, with a formal dining room on the ground floor and a lounge on the first floor. She said she never went up to the second floor, where the two maids had their rooms."

Richard started to research the house and found that at one time, it was one of four schools in the road. Then he started to look at who lived in the house, having no idea how significant this particular former resident would be.

Richard said: "His father introduced him to archaeology and he joined Brighton and Hove Archaeological Club when he was 11. He was born in 1895 in Peking, where his father was serving as a medical missionary. They had to leave because of the Opium Wars and they came back here.

"They were both doctors and they set up a medical practice at 1 Seafield Road, Hove. When Cecil married, his father gave him this house as a wedding present. He set up his own medical practice here. He found a huge amount of Neolithic sites in Sussex and wrote five books, which are in the British Museum."

Among those present at the Blue Plaque unveiling was Dr Curwen's grandson, Matthew Gimlette, who spoke of him as a nice, kind man.

Apparently, he liked to be low-key about his hobby, in case it affected his standing as a doctor of medicine.

Cecil was described as a shining example of the great amateur archaeologists who set the standard for modern archaeology.

He was outstanding in the field of Sussex prehistoric archaeology and trained others at his excavation of Iron Age and Roman sites at Thundersbarrow Hill, north of Shoreham, in 1932.

After the First World War, Cecil and his father, a field archaeologist, collaborated in excavations on the South Downs. In around 1930, he presented the Sussex Archaeological Society with a replica of Hove's famous amber cup, which was discovered in 1857.

He moved from Medina Villas to Holland Road in Hove in 1934. He died at his daughter's home in Cheshire on May 4, 1967.

The Blue Plaque reads: "E. Cecil Curwen MD OBE 1895-1967. Renowned amateur archaeologist and author specialising in prehistoric Sussex lived here 1925 to 1934."

At the nearby Seafield Road property, another Blue Plaque from The Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen honours his father.

It reads: "Dr Eliot Curwen 1865-1950. Archaeologist & Honorary Medical Officer Party to the Grenfell Mission 1893 lived here."