A Cambridgeshire village has erected a 5ft tall statue of dinosaur poo to celebrate its past.

Bassingbourn parish council chose the £10,000 bronze sculpture in a competition, reports the Daily Telegraph.

It beat rivals including a sculpture of one of the Second World War bombers that flew from a local airfield.

Fossilised dinosaur droppings - coprolite - brought wealth to the area late in the 19th century.

"It's an excellent idea; unusual and very imaginative," said Jack White, the parish council chairman.

"Something like a bomber, which used to fly from here in the war, would have been too obvious.

"Another idea was to have a sculpture of a heron but that wouldn't have lasted long because there would have been plenty of bits to hang off. This is sturdy and highly original."

The winning design came from David Billings, a former teacher at Bassingbourn Village College.

"The idea is to have a heap of muck on top of a plinth. I paint as a hobby but I wouldn't call myself an artist. I sketched out the idea after hearing about the competition while I was in the pub," he said.