IT will never be known how an 87-year-old grandmother drowned in a stream less than a mile from her home.

Alice Rudd's body was found by police in Crook Beck last April, an inquest at Bishop Auckland magistrates court was told last week.

Earlier a dog walker had sparked a search by coming across her walking stick, handbag, slippers and shawl lying on the bank 50 metres upstream.

The bank was slippery and at this point there was a near-vertical drop into the water, PC Ian Craggs told the hearing.

The hearing also heard that Mrs Rudd rarely left her bungalow in Rydal Drive, Crook.

Her son John Rudd, of Hall Lane Estate, Willington, said she had been in good health when he had last seen her two days earlier.

She had telephoned her older son Edwin, who lives in Nottingham, the night before her death.

Darlington and South Durham coroner Colin Penna recorded an open verdict on Mrs Rudd.