BRITAIN'S oldest woman, Swindon-born Eva Pickles, has died at the age of 109 just days after being awarded the record.

Mrs Pickles, born in Swindon in 1891 when Gladstone was Prime Minister and Queen Victoria still had 10 years to reign, died on Thursday, just a few days after the Guinness Book of Records confirmed that she was the oldest woman in the United Kingdom.

She inherited the title following the death of 114-year-old Eva Morris in Staffordshire.

Mrs Pickles passed away at the Waterside rest home in Fordingbridge, Hampshire.

She began her working life as a milliner in a London store.

It was while on holiday in Torquay that she met Fred Pickles, a gentleman's outfitter, and they were married in 1926 at the Congregational Church in Fordingbridge where her family then lived.

The couple returned to Swindon where they ran a drapery business for many years until 1940 when her husband died. They had no children.

Mrs Pickles continued to run the shop for 11 years before retiring and returning to Fordingbridge.

Mrs Pickles was a staunch member of the town's Congregational Church.

A keen tennis player and singer in her younger days, she was a founder member of the local tennis club and a member of the local choral society.

She looked after herself until shortly before her 99th birthday when increasing frailty forced her to move to the Waterside rest home where she remained until her death in the early hours of Thursday morning.

A Guinness Book of World Records spokesman said: "Mrs Pickles was only confirmed as Britain's oldest woman on November 14.

"She replaced Mrs Morris, who died on November 2."