Company name: Hawkley Village Hall

Description: Empshott is a beautiful area of English farmland and woodland at the headwaters of the River Rother, centring upon the Church of the Holy Rood, which is 13th century, though there has inevitably been some rebuilding over the centuries, including a charming bell turret. The church is the heart of the village partly because there is nothing else, no concentration of houses, no shops, no school, no pub, and the mainroad is the B3006. So it is not only a sense of the holy which the church gives; there is also a strong sense of identity to regular and irregular churchgoers who in their turn communicate it to their neighbours.