TV viewers had the chance to witness a Southend independent bakery’s bid to be crowned Britain’s Best Bakery.

Birdwood Bakery owner Roseanne Strong and her head baker Mark Costello, faced two rival bakeries in last week’s episode of the ITV show, Britain’s Best Bakery.

The Southend company, firm worked hard to impress judges, cake connoisseur Mich Turner, and bread expert Peter Sidwell with its spinach goat’scheese flatbread and sausage rolls.

In the end, however, Birdwood,which has shops in Leigh Road and Leigh Broadway, Leigh, and Southend’s Victoria Shopping Centre was beaten to the prize by the Suffolk-based Cake Shop Bakery.

Ms Strong said:“On the day of filming, it was exhausting, but really good fun. It was filmed last year, on a beautiful day in July or August.

“Some of it was quite hard going – as the programme goes on, you can see we’re getting more and more exhausted. It put Leigh on the ma pagain, so it was nice for the area.”