YORKSHIRE has many claims to fame, some you would pick, others you might not, but this week it has come to our attention that it is a Yorkshireman who has gone down in history to having the longest nose in the world ever.

He was Thomas Wedders, also known as Thomas Wadhouse, who was born in Yorkshire around 1720 and died somewhere in the county around 1780.

He joined a travelling freak circus and, according to an 1896 book, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, he exhibited his extraordinary nose throughout Yorkshire.

And it was extraordinary: it was seven and a half inches, or 19cms, long.

It overshadows the longest nose which is still alive – that belongs to Mehmet Ozyurek in Turkey and is a mere 3.46ins (8.8cms) long.