A teddy bear shop's window display has been declared blooming wonderful.

Bear Bottoms, Elvet Bridge, Durham City, which was started by Joanne McDonald four years ago, has won the Durham City Forum's best dressed shop window competition.

The competition, held to coincide with the visit of Britain in Bloom judges and support the city's entry, attracted entries from 15 shops.

Ms McDonald and her staff created a display featuring bears wearing specially-made aprons bearing messages supporting the city, surrounded by artificial flowers.

The shop wins four bottles of champagne, a month's free car parking at the Prince Bishops Shopping Centre and a supermarket voucher worth £50.

Jill Dodds, administrator for the Durham City Forum described the Bear Bottoms window as "fantastic, absolutely superb".

"We have a lot of shops that can't change their windows because of the corporate thing but they put little flowers in them," she said.

"Luckily we have some unique traders like Bear Bottoms.

"It is good when you get support like this. Hopefully, it will encourage others to do more next year.''

Ms McDonald said of the shop's win: "It's brilliant, it's fantastic. We made the pinnies and painted them and made the flowers.

"We always try to enter things like this. We try to support Durham and the things Durham is doing.''

The runners-up were The Gift Company, Prince Bishops Shopping Centre, and third was Whittard of Chelsea, Market Place, which won last year.