Yes, the htaccess and htpasswd protection of the folder worked as expected after the line
ErrorDocument 401 "Authorisation Required"
was added to the htaccess file. Upon clicking a link to a file in the protected folder user is prompted to enter username and password, if not correct the file does not load, if correct it does. Once established the credentials are retained until you quit the browser, not just log out or close the window. This all is as expect for htaccess file protection.
While you are looking at folder access it might be useful to be able to specify a location for htpasswd outside the directory being protected.
Thanks for your help in solving this.
Richard Brundage