There's no place like home... for 100 years: Centenarian lives in the house where she was born (and these days it has running water and electricity)
When Georgina Brown was born in the front bedroom of her home, the Titanic had not even set sail.
One hundred years on and Mrs Brown is still going strong – and still living in the same cottage.
The great-grandmother is the fifth generation of her family to own the three-bedroom village property, which they have occupied since 1850.
Home sweet home: Georgina Brown has lived in the same house for 100 years
A photograph of Forge Cottage, Hambledon, Hampshire dated 1904. The pictured boys are Georgina Brown's cousins Ron (left) and Eric Andrews. The girls names are not known.
Today: Forge Cottage, Hambledon, Hampshire, the home of Georgina Brown, as it looks now
Still here: The 100-year-old sits in the kitchen of her cottage which has only been decorated three times since she was born
Despite the cottage in Hambledon, Hampshire, being valued at £650,000, Mrs Brown said: ‘I was born here and I will never leave.
‘I have so many happy memories here. It is a perfect little village and I know almost everyone here.’
She was born on January 13, 1912, a few miles from Southampton, where the Titanic left for its ill-fated maiden voyage that April.
She was delivered in the same upstairs room where her father George Lott was born and where she gave birth to daughters Sylvia and Pam, now 72 and 71, and where she still sleeps.
The cottage still has the same layout as when she was born, except for the addition of an inside toilet. Electricity and running water arrived in 1954.
Different world, different time: Photo taken in 1913 of Georgina Brown aged one-year with her mother Mary Lott next to the walnut tree in the back garden of Forge Cottage
1922: Georgina aged 10 with her dog Nell and parents George Harr and Mary Lott
Nell of a life: Miss Brown aged 15 with her dog Nell and aged 18 (right)
Love amd marriage: A photograph dated 1937 featuring Georgina Brown and her first husband Jack Cleeve
All change: Forge Cottage as it looks today...
She can remember looking out of her window and seeing soldiers leaving the village on their way to fight in the First World War, while some 30 years later she saw Winston Churchill passing the house on his way to address troops at a nearby barracks ahead of D-Day.
Her father ran a blacksmiths attached to the side of the house, later replacing it with a shop which still stands today.
After leaving school at 14, Georgina worked in the shop while earning extra money cooking for a family at the local vicarage.
In 1938, aged 26, she married RAF chef Jack Cleeve and their daughters arrived in 1939 and 1940. They divorced after the war and in 1959 she remarried, to Bert Brown, and they ran the shop together until his death in 1982, when she retired. Mrs Brown, who still owns the shop but rents it out, said: ‘I can’t believe I am 100 – I don’t feel that age. It has all gone very quickly. I am looking forward to spending my 101st birthday in this spot next year.’
...and as it was in 1904 featuring Georgina's cousins Ron and Eric Andrews and some unknown girls
Stalwart: Georgina stands proud at the front of her home, with her father's shop to the left...
... and as it was in 1920 featuring Georgina's father George Harry Lott
Daredevil dog: A photo from 1920 of Georgina Brown's dog Nell standing on her bicycle - her father sold bicycles from the family shop, Lott's Stores, adjoining their house
Lucky horseshoe: Georgina's father George Harry Brown working as a blacksmith at the front of Forge Cottage in 1920
Staying power: Photo taken at the back of Forge Cottage, Hambledon, Hampshire dated 1914, two years after Georgina Brown was born at the cottage featuring her parents George Harry Lott and Mary Lott
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