LANCASHIRE'S Paul Horton hit his maiden first-class century as the Red Rose county batted out the final day of their LV County Champion-ship clash to frustrate Worcestershire's hopes of victory.

The 24-year-old recorded a fabulous 139 to end any hopes the visitors had of claiming their first Division One win of the season at Old Trafford.

Worcestershire had gone into day four hoping to capitalise on their first innings lead of 166 - it had been reduced to 103 late on day three - and move off the bottom of the table.

But Horton and his captain Mark Chilton built on their overnight opening stand of 63 to take the score to 165-0 before Chilton was caught at short leg for 59 off the bowling of spinner Gareth Batty.

Chilton has struggled for form in both four-day and one-day cricket this season, but after taking a while to get into his stride, he played a number of classy strokes on the way to his half-century off 130 balls.

Horton fell one short of a ton against Essex in the Championship back in 2005.

That seemed to be playing on his mind as he spent 40 minutes, and 12 overs, in the nervous nineties before easing Batty down to long-on for the one he so craved. His century came off 212 balls and contained 16 boundaries.

Although Horton and Chilton's opening stand was the main reason for Lancashire claiming their third draw of the season, early bad light reduced the day's allocation of overs by 13 and also took the sting out of any early momentum Worcestershire attempted to gather.

The only time in the day when the visitors did get on a bit of a roll was when Mal Loye (35) was trapped lbw by Nadeem Malik to leave the score 244-2.

That sparked a nervy period for the hosts in which they lost five wickets for just 28 runs to slump from 244-1 to 272-6.

Roger Sillence chipped in with two of the wickets before Kabir Ali (2-52) then dismissed Luke Sutton to record match figures of 10-102.