An exhibition in Tring’s Local History Museum has revealed the town was possibly home to a lady who lived to the ripe age of 111.
It is thought Betty Leatherland was born Elizabeth Horam in Chinnor on April 24 1763 and went on to marry a Joseph Leatherland.
After she was widowed, Betty moved to Tring in 1830 and spent the next 40 years selling her wares in surrounding villages, before spending her last years at lodgings at the Red Lion Inn on Frogmore Street.
She became a well-known face in the district, and her corn-reaping abilities gave her a sort of celebrity status at the time.
An 1874 newspaper report told how crowds turned out to watch Betty, who was aged 111 at the time, reaping corn in a field on the road from Tring to Little Tring.
It was said that many who witnessed the event took a few ears of corn cut by Betty as a momento of the occasion.
She died in January 1875, in her 112th year, and is thought to be buried in Tring churchyard.
Her great age was disputed, but a report on her funeral said there was little doubt she was over 100, even if it couldn’t be proved she was the age she claimed.