COCKFIELD was today crowned the 2012 Village of the Year.

It beat off the challenge of Bardwell and Worlingworth to claim the title which also included a prize of �1,000.

It now puts the village in the spotlight and hopes are high that it will raise its profile and encourage more people to visit the picture postcard community.

Despite being scattered across several hamlets, grouped around eight pristine greens and its 14th Century church, it only takes about 30 minutes to walk the length of its field-flanked boundaries.

There is, as you would expect from a winner of Village of the Year, plenty to see: the shop, post office, garage, churches, cemetery, IT rooms, farms, two pubs and a school.

There have also been a number of project which have been launched including schemes to buy wildlife meadows, the village hall renovation, care in the community, and the First Responders, among many.

Villagers are known to have taken pride at forward-thinking attitudes that have seen the launch of initiatives from computer courses in a farmer’s outbuilding to a housing scheme that created dozens of homes for local families.

Janne Cutting-Keyton, parish councillor and co-ordinator behind Cockfield’s tilt at the award, said today: “We will wear our title with pride. We were second last time that we entered but to come first this time round is absolutely brilliant.

“We need time to decide what this all means to us but it is bound to have an impact on the village and maybe entice a few more people to visit us. It has certainly upped our profile and may even give us a bit more clout to push things through.

“Community spirit can’t be bottled, or bought or imposed. It has to be created and then to sustain it, it has to be nurtured. I have no idea when Cockfield’s community spirit started, but today it remains at the heart of village life.”