NORTHWICH is home to three of the best pies in Great Britain.

A trio of the town's butchers reached the final of the Great British Pie Off competition, with Webb's Butchers' steak pie winning second place, narrowly missing out on the top spot by half a point.

The winner was a chicken and ham pie from Leicester, making Webb's offering the best steak pie in the UK.

Witton Street scored another success as Birtwisle's steak and ale pie won eighth place.

Littlers Butchers, in Hartford and Sandiway, won ninth place with a beef and onion pie.

Pies were nominated in the competition, run by the Daily Star Sunday Newspaper, by readers – without the shops knowing anything about it.

"It brilliant having three from the top 10 in this area," said Paul Lowe, manager at Webbs.

"We must be the pie capital of Great Britain now.

"When we were rung up about it at first I thought it was someone having a wind up.

"We're even more chuffed because we knew nothing about it."

C Webb and Son's made pies when it opened in 1929 but stopped in the 1970s.

"We started making them again around five or six years ago and have increased our range since then," Paul said.

"Everything we put in the pies is all prime cuts – we use meat off our own cattle which we buy at market, we're traditional.

"We can tell you where every animal has come from.

"We have no problem with quality, we always guarantee it's going to be the best we can get."

The Great British Pie Off final was judged by Mickey Quinn, former Premier League and Newcastle striker, Peterborough pin-up model Susie Summers and chief judge Stuart James, Daily Star Sunday Editor.

Stuart described Webb's steak pie as having 'lovely pastry and tender meat'.

Paul said: "When he said about the meat in the pie being really tender, that was the most pleasing thing."

Birtwisle's steak and ale pie was praised for its beer flavour.

Nick Birtwisle said: "It's just very nice to be recognised by customers who go to the effort to nominate us for such an award – it's very good of people to do that off their own backs.

"I knew nothing about it so it's come as a nice surprise.

"That beer flavour is the Guinness.

"It's very simple – we use only the best ingredients in our pies."

Littlers beef and onion pie was praised by Stuart for it's pastry.