VILLAGES around Halstead are officially the prettiest in the land after claiming most of the top spots in the Essex Village of the Year competition.

Toppesfield and Gainsford End, with a population of just 500, beat 37 other competitors to win the title and claim £500, a shield and a certificate.

Steeple Bumpstead was awarded £100 for their third place finish while Great Maplestead won the “Class 5” awarded in the awards run by the Rural Community Council of Essex (RCCE).

Dave Dyson, vice-chairman of Toppesfield and Gainsford End Parish Council, said: “It is a great day for the village. It is not the council which has done this, it is the village and they should all be proud.

“We are proud of the fact we have our own shop, our own pub, our own brewery, we have got to the stage where hopefully we have made life in Toppesfield much better for the people who live here and for those in the surrounding villages.

“When we first entered we never expected this, when the judges came round the first time and we met them and showed them around the village they seemed to be impressed, when we found out we had reached the final, we weren’t told how many where in the final so we really didn’t know how we would do.

“But for the final, we had eight judges come round and view the village, we made a presentation, they asked a lot of questions and fortunately we could answer most of them positively and they were making the right kinds of noises so we thought we might stand a chance.

“At the very start we said to the judges, as a village if we have a problem, we look for a solution together rather than throwing our hands up in the air and we repeated that at the very end as well.”

Toppesfield and Gainsford End impressed judges with their community-run village shop and the local pub, The Green Man which was saved from closure by volunteers which is now run as a community enterprise.

There is also a Doctor’s Car Service which is run by the parish council and there are ongoing plans to extend the village hall and improve the playing field facilities.

The judges paid homage to the huge amount of community facilities and locally-managed events in such a small village, and its feeling of inclusiveness and altruism.

RCCE director Nick Shuttleworth said: “Toppesfield is a vibrant and remarkably enterprising community with a real flair for finding solutions to local issues.

“There must be very few villages in the whole country where both the shop and pub are successfully run by the community.”

Steeple Bumpstead boasts a volunteer-run village library, a successful business park, village magazine and Parish Plan which earned the village one of the top spots.