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The only Wymeswold centenarian so far! Or was she ? Alec Moretti According to the Parish Registers (Volume 6) under burials :- 16 Sept. 1849, Ann Pole, age 100 But in the Women's Institute record of the gravestones in the churchyard her age is given as 99. Checking her gravestone shows the inscription to be "in the hundredth year of her age." i.e. aged between 99 and 100. So how near 100 was she? She was born Ann Charles and baptised on 24 November 1749. She married William Pole of Hoton on 1 January 1776 and died on 11 September 1849 being buried 5 days later. Unless she was over 2½ months old when she was baptised, she was aged 99 years at her death. Almost certainly she lived in Matilda Cottage in Clay Street, where her mother, Elizabeth Charles, died in 1813, aged 95 years. Not many people lived that long in those days! Originally published in the WHO Newsletter 1998. Copyright the author. Next article Wymeswold local history articles