A rare gold signet ring unearthed by a metal detectorist on the Isle of Sheppey has gone on display at Hampton Court Palace.

It is believed the Tudor heirloom found by Ashley Solly had been owned by Anne Boleyn's family.

The item of jewellery was discovered near the historic 16th century grade II-listed Shurland Hall at Eastchurch where many Islanders believe Henry VIII took his second wife on honeymoon.

The once derelict building, now fully restored, was previously owned by Anne Boleyn's cousin Sir Thomas Cheney.

The solid gold ring, said to be worth £40,000, is engraved with a bull's head.

Historians say the animal could have been a visual pun on the family's name which was often spelled Bull-en.

Anne, who lived at Hever Castle near Edenbridge as a child and is probably Henry's most famous of his six wives, had been a lady-in-waiting to his first wife Catherine of Aragon at Leeds Castle.

When Anne, the mother of Elizabeth 1, refused to become the king's mistress, Henry split from Rome and created the Church of England so he could divorce Catherine and marry Anne.

The couple wed in January 1533 after a secret ceremony two months earlier.

After Anne was unable to give birth to an heir, Henry began courting Jane Seymour and ordered Anne to be investigated for adultery, incest and treason. She was sent to the Tower of London and beheaded on May 19, 1536. Eleven days later, Henry married his third wife.

The ring went on display in the Great Hall of Hampton Court, where Anne had lived, on Wednesday, February 8 after Historic Royal Palaces bought it with help from the Arts Council England and the British Museum had turned it down.

Its finder, a grandfather-of-five from Guernsey Way, Ashford, stumbled on it in August 2019 during a sweep of the area as members of the Medway History Finders club prepared for a three-day Bank Holiday weekend rally. They returned to the Island in 2022.

Mr Solly, who will be 60 on February 27, recalled: "It was a Sunday before the rally. The other lads said they had already checked the field but I wanted to have a go myself.

"I'd only taken up metal detecting as a hobby a few months before to get fit.

"I started at 9am and was alone in the field when there was a beep after about 20 minutes on my Equinox 800 and out came the ring. It was clean and in perfect condition. It was a good day!"

After other members flocked around him to get a sight of the find, he took it to the British Museum in London the following day.

The road worker said: "Originally, everyone thought it might have been lost by a bishop during Henry VIII's reign. But experts recognised it had the Boleyn crest. They thought it might be worth up to £50,000 but the British Museum would only pay £15,000."

An inquest ruled that it was treasure trove, allowing Mr Solly to keep it. Then, out-of-the-blue, Historic Palaces decided to buy it and offered £40,000.

Mr Solly, who has split the windfall with the landowner, said: "It's a wonderful early birthday present."

He said he planned to invest it.

The metal detectorist still goes treasure hunting on Sundays but admits all he's found since are "lots of old coins".

As many as 400 detectorists spent the Bank Holiday weekend sifting through 500 acres of farmland in search of other buried treasure.

Club spokesman Andrew Hunter said at the time: “We are very excited. This land has never been searched before as far as we know. We are expecting to uncover artefacts from the Viking, Roman and Anglo-Saxon eras.”

Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII visited Shurland Hall for three days in 1532 on their way to France. The stay bankrupted Thomas Cheyne as he had to feed a party of 300.

The ring was not the only treasure found in the area. Around the same time, metal detectorist Philip Bowes discovered a 400-year-old silver hawking ring valued at £18,000.

An inquest in 2021 heard that experts from the British Museum had traced the vervel, used to tether birds of prey, to its original owner Philip Herbert, a former Lord Lieutenant of Kent who had been a friend of King James I. He lived from 1584 to 1650.

As none of Mr Herbert's heirs could be found, coroner Katrina Hepburn declared the item treasure trove which allowed its finder to keep it.