THE Duke of York will be presented with a unique gift on Monday, hand made by a York butcher.

Lee Bell, from Bell’s Family Butchers in Dringhouses, will present Prince Andrew with a special eight pound pork pie, made to a 35-year-old recipe, as part of the York 800 Charter Day celebrations.

Lee said the pie, known as a Ged Bell Growler after his late father, will be the centrepiece of a buffet for the visit, and he hoped it would be a good representation of the county.

He said: “I heard he was being presented with cupcakes, which I didn’t think was very Yorkshire, so I thought ‘let’s get in there with a pork pie, and give him a proper Yorkshire welcome’. And if we’re going to present him with one, it should be the best.

Lee said he hoped the pie, which weighs about eight pounds and is emblazoned with York 800, would impress the Duke As part of the York 800 Charter Weekend celebrations York College professional cookery students Rosanna Eastwood and Patrick Hilder have been working hard, alongside their tutor Suzanne Barwick, to bake 800 individual cup cakes for the occasion.

They feature the York800 colours of pink, red, orange and cream, and will be set out in the number 800 in a rectangular shaped cake and handed out in Parliament Street on Monday.

Youngsters from Yearsley Grove School’s after school music club, Singing Squad will be taking part in the city’s 800 celebration as part of Ebor Vox on Monday at the Eye of York. The group have performed at the Barbican, the University of York and even an army Christmas ball and recently took part in the city’s Children’s University initiative.