THE director of the British Museum will be in Salisbury on Friday to deliver a lecture at the cathedral on the Magna Carta.

Neil MacGregor, pictured, is a very coveted man. The international arts world all want him to work with them – all except Greece – he deeply believes the Elgin Marbles belong in the UK.

MacGregor has firmly established himself as a unique figure on the cultural scene – a curatorial and commercial visionary, an administrative powerhouse, a master of international diplomacy and a public intellectual committed to reaching a mass audience through his exhibitions, books and broadcasting.

All this he does without ever compromising on the rigour of his ideas. So much is he respected (and liked) that, a few years ago, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art offered him “a fortune” to move there. But he resisted and remained at the British Museum.

This may be one of the last chances to see him in public in England as there are rumours he has been courted by a new cultural centre in Berlin called the Humboldt-Forum.

Former Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said: “Neil utterly understands that there is a fatuousness about the argument that you have to choose between access and excellence.”

His lecture is entitled Making the Magna Carta We Want: The Unintended Meanings of an Icon and it starts at 7.30pm (doors open at 6.30pm).

The event is free with a retiring collection in aid of the cathedral’s repair programme.