WINCHESTER'S Royal Hampshire County Hospital is 264 years old this year, and to celebrate there will be a thanksgiving on Saturday.

Members of the public are welcome to join staff and volunteers in St Catherine's View restaurant at 3pm.

As part of the celebrations, guest speaker Baroness Warnock of Weeke will be attending.

It is hoped that Lady Warnock will be talking about developments relating to embryology and the replacement of body parts by cloning.

The Rev Nicholas Flood from the hospital's chaplaincy service said: "This year we are celebrating the foundation of the hospital 264 years ago and with the year 2000 also being Christ's millennium year, we wanted to make it something special."