IT is safe to assume that no photograph exists of Laycock's famous lie-abed Old Three Laps – who died in 1856 after spending 49 years between the sheets – but this near-contemporary print gives a graphic idea of his appearance.

William Sharp, of the Whorles Far, had been about to marry in his twenties in 1807, but when his plans fell through he went to bed and stayed there for the rest of his life, in a downstairs room with a stone flagged floor, a clock covered with cobwebs, and a window patched up with wood.

The Preston Chronicle in 1839 described him as "rolled up like a hedgehog", adding that his beard was "grisly, his hair silvery white, and most enormous teeth project from his lips".

The 1851 census gives a succinct picture: "William Sharp. Unmarried. Aged 74. Independent Landed Proprietor. Lain in bed 44 years." He was being nursed by an aunt a year older than himself.

Although usually regarded as a quaint old Yorkshire character, Old Three Laps surely provides a poignant example of mental illness when little understood.