A CHARITY night raised an astonishing £33,000 with a little help from a group of Wrexham bakers.

Bosses at Village Bakery in Coedpoeth commissioned a baker’s dozen of apprentices to create a lifesize sculpture of Cinderella’s horse-drawn carriage, which took centre stage at Hope House Hospice’s Hopes, Dreams and Promises ball held at Chester racecourse on Saturday.

The huge piece of edible art took 300 hours to create and was made up of roughly 300 loaves of bread and buns. It would have made the team from Blue Peter proud as it was all held together with super strength glue and double sided sticky tape.

Robin Jones, joint managing director of Village Bakery, expressed pride at the achievements of his budding bakers and was delighted to have helped the hospice, which said that the huge sum of £33,000 had been raised on the night.

He said: “The work my team has carried out is absolutely wonderful.

“The horse and carriage looked fantastic and I’d like to thank the apprentices for putting so much hard work and effort into the project and it’s a great credit to them as it really showcased their skill.

“We’ve never done anything like this before and probably never will again but it’s been a great experience and a really novel way for our staff to train.”

Mr Jones said the whole project was delicate and difficult but admitted the horse, which they doubted could be made, was the trickiest to create.

He added: “We were finishing it off on Friday 13th and one of our bakers knocked it over twice so we were very relieved when it made it safely to the racecourse.”

Alison Marsh, area fundraising manager for the hospice, said the sculpture took pride of place at the Cinderella ball as guests made a donation and queued up to have their photograph taken in the carriage.

She said: “The art was truly spectacular, a major feature of the night, and it really helped to make our potential donors realise they can actually make the hospice children’s hopes and dreams come true.

“The guests really loved the carriage and it was great to get such unbelievable support in such a unique way.”