Worcester is the home of the person destined to be the last in line of a family dynasty tracing its ''tree'' back to 1066 and having played a crucial role in the industrial prosperity of the Faithful City for much of two centuries.

She is 73-year-old Miss Ann Fownes Rigden -- the last surviving direct descendent of Sir William Fones, a Norman knight who came to England with the Conquest of William the Conqueror 930 years ago.

After several generations, the Fones Family somehow acquired a ''w'' to its surname, becoming Fownes.

And it was at Worcester in 1777 that John Fownes founded what was to develop into a major national and international glove-making company and one eventually renowned as being the oldest such firm in Britain.

One of its apprentices was John Dent who was also to set up his own large-scale firm in the city.

The 1960's began to see a sharp decline in the British gloving industry, and in 1969, Worcester's two major manufacturers, Fownes and Dent, Allcroft merged into one company. Dents closed down their factory in Sunnyside Road, and just two years later in 1971, the amalgamated company closed down the Fownes factory as well and left Worcester, ending a glorious tradition of glove-making in the city spanning almost 200 years.

The Victorian glove factory is now a three-star hotel which opened its facilities to the public for the first time over the Christmas week of 1986.