Giant egg is just one of the remarkable claims from area

IF you're fascinated by freaks of nature (and who among us is not?) you may recall that in 2010 a gent named Jeremy Power of Cheltenham hit the headlines when he popped into his hen house first thing one morning and found a giant egg.

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Laid by his pet chicken Rainbow, it weighed 130 grams, which in old money is four and a half ounces. The average weight of a chicken's egg is 56 grams, or two ounces by the way.

Impressive an achievement though this is, it must be noted that in 1952 the Gloucestershire Echo reported a chicken belonging to Mrs Lynes of Greenway Lane, Charlton Kings had produced an egg weighing eight ounces (227 grams) and measuring three and half inches (8.9 centimeters) in circumference.

Before we puff up with pride about the prowess of poultry in Gloucestershire, it should be noted that the world record for a hen’s egg has stood since 1956 when one weighing 454 grams, that's 16 ounces or one pound, was produced by a presumably uncomfortable chicken in New Jersey, USA.

Perhaps the feathery forbears of Mr Power's and Mrs Lynes's champion layers were known to James M Smith, who in the 1930s lived at Home Farm, Newent.