KIELDER has added yet another feather to its already bristling cap.

For the village which has been named the most remote in England, with the darkest night skies because of an almost total lack of light pollution, has now been named the quietest place in the country too.

The accolade has come from eminent professor of acoustic engineering Trevor Cox, in his new book  Sonic Wonderland: A Scientific Odyssey of Sound.

Prof. Cox measured factors including the distance from the nearest road or flight path to find Britain's most serene location.

Even the dentist drill shriek of the area's notorious midgies, the angry bark of roe deer during the rut and the mewing of buzzards, failed to deter the academic from crowning Kielder's sound of silence as the most profound in Britain.

In the book, he writes of Kielder: "Even the insects were too quiet - they were biting me, but not making any noise.

"Zero decibels is your threshold for hearing and once you get below that there is nothing to be heard other than your own body sounds."