Gloucester cooks perfect lamprey pie recipe for Queen

Cooks in Gloucester have fine-tuned a traditional recipe for a lamprey pie to be cooked for the Queen as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

The tradition of the city sending one of the pies to the reigning monarch each Christmas dates back to the Middle Ages, but the custom died out in the 19th Century.

The eel-like creatures are a protected species in the River Severn so the lampreys in the pie have been brought over from Canada where they are considered a pest.