Soham gardener Trevor Brooks scooped £100 for his ruler-busting runner bean.

Trevor’s bean measured in at 45cm, some half-a-centimetre long than the runner up in the UK wide competition run by DT Brown.

The garden mail order company supplied packets of its runner bean enorma free of charge to public houses and social clubs throughout the UK, with a challenge to regulars to see who could grow the longest pod.

And Trevor, a regular at the Carpenters Arms, in Brook Street, came out on top.

Second place went to Dave Evans, of the Butchers Arms, in Reading, whose bean measured 44.5cm, with Dale Johnson of the AHVLA Social Club, in Preston, producing a specimen 38.7cm long in third place.

The challenge originated when Carpenters Arms landlady Alison Seymour told DT Brown of her regulars’ intention to hold a competition to see who could grow the longest runner bean from the seed of its enorma variety she was ordering.

It gave the company’s Tim Jeffries the idea for a national contest to discover which British pub or club could grow the longest specimen.

Mr Jeffries aid: “It seems poetic justice that Trevor from the Carpenters went on to win the national competition.”