A Suffolk sheep farmer is delighted after scooping the top interbreed award for his sheep at the Tendring Show.

After being crowned champion in his breed at the competition on Saturday, July 13, Benn Lugsden's pedigree Border Leicester ram was pitted against all the other sheep breed champions at the show.

The home-bred sheep - who is called Idunno - wowed interbreed championship sheep judge Susan Holdich, who keeps sheep at Bacton.

Interbreed sheep judging (Image: Sarah Chambers)

"It's an astonishing shearling ram. It's got everything you want. It stands beautifully - it's just got that oomph factor," she said.

Benn - who keeps 15 Border Leicester ewes and some Dorset Downs - is based at Thwaite, near Eye, and runs a contracting business called  Shepherding of Suffolk. He also keeps his Neben flock.

"He's done well all year," said Benn, adding that the ram also won breed champion at the Suffolk and Royal Norfolk shows.

Interbreed sheep championship at Tendring (Image: Sarah Chambers)

"They are very showy," he said of the breed. They also needed to be looked after, he added. "You wouldn't want to keep a lot but as a terminal ram they are coming back a bit."

After Tendring - which attracted around 21,000 visitors to Lawford, near Manningtree on Saturday - he is heading to the Wayland Show in Norfolk on August 6.

In the cattle pens, Melissa Peck of Thuxton, near Dereham in Norfolk, was also delighted and shocked after Kitkat, her Limousin cross heifer, scooped the interbreed cattle crown.

"It's the first time I have ever won it," she said. "It's quite exciting. I was quite surprised.  There were some good cows in there. I had quite a young heifer in there compared to the cows. She's 15 months old so quite young compared to some of these."

Melissa Peck and her interbreed cattle champion (Image: Sarah Chambers) She keeps 15 cows partnering with Tim Kinge in the business. Kitkat also won the commercial beef champion title at the Suffolk Show, she said.

Reserve champion went to Simon Long of Stoke-by-Nayland with his Aberdeen Angus Rosemead Bella Maid, a four-year-old cow with calf at foot.

Leslie Cook - who co-judged the cattle interbreed championship with Philip Dale - described the winning animal as "an ideal commercial butcher's beast".

Sheep competition at the Tendring Show (Image: Sarah Chambers) It was "ideal in terms of weight, muscling and the degree of finish on it and fat cover," he said.

The overall standard at the show was "excellent", he added. "There was a lot of very good cattle that would be comparable with the best cattle in the country," he said. 

The reserve was "a show of moderate farm sizes which is a positive to me rather than being too big and extremely well fleshed with a near perfect udder and an excellent calf at foot".