A former landlady whose regular presence at a riverside pub led her to be called the Queen of Osney Island has died aged 98.

Rosemary Shorter passed away at the Horton Hospital in Banbury on Tuesday.

She had been born on the island and, after moving around Oxford and to Cornwall with her husband George, returned in the early 1990s to live with her son Donald in West Street.

In the 1950s, she ran a Pembroke College boarding house, serving as landlady to future Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine and fellow politician Julian Critchley.

Deep into her 90s, she remained a fixture at the former Waterman’s Arms, sitting in the same seat with a pint of Morland’s bitter, telling everyone who passed that it was the beer that kept her going.

Her son Donald Shorter, 59, said: “She became an institution.”

“She knew lots of people because she chatted to everybody.”

Mrs Shorter hit national headlines in 2007, when floods on the island stopped her from being able to make her daily visits to the pub.

But two years ago, her increasing frailty meant she had to move to a West Oxfordshire nursing home.

Long-time island resident and Oxford Times columnist Christopher Gray said: “She was a true character, always sat in her favourite chair early at lunchtime and early in the evening, with a pint of beer in hand.”

Her funeral will take place at the cemetery chapel in Botley at 11am on Thursday, October 27.