TRIBUTES were paid yesterday to one of Durham's best known and most highly respected residents.

Peggy McIntyre died aged 93 in the early hours of Tuesday at her home in Durham City.

Born at Broom House Farm, Witton Gilbert, the former Peggy Burn married the late Gordon McIntyre in 1939. After her marriage, she took an active role in the family business of J and G Archibald, and supported her husband in his duties as an Alderman. She was Mayoress in 1952-53 and 1973-74.

She was chairwoman of the NSPCC in the 1940s and 1950s, and served as president of the city's Inner Wheel Club and Invalid Children's Aid, and was a member of the Durham County Association of Women, and the Durham Ladies' Lecture Club.

She took a keen interest in the Ramside Estates Hotel group, which her husband co-founded and co-owned.

Mrs McIntyre travelled extensively with her husband and visited Australia several times to meet close relatives.

Her daughter-in-law, Nancy McIntyre, said yesterday: "Tributes have been pouring in. She will be a great loss, she always maintained a positive attitude and was a tower of strength to her family.''

Her funeral is on Wednesday at St Cuthbert's Church, in Durham, at 3.15pm.