Ralph Vaughan Williams's Lark Ascending is the nation's favourite piece of classic music

The Lark Ascending has been voted the nation's favourite piece of classical music.

Ralph Vaughan Williams's work topped the Classic FM Hall of Fame after listeners cast more than 200,000 votes.

It topped the poll last year as well and four years ago was named the nation's favourite Desert Island Discs tune.

British composer Vaughan Williams was inspired by a poem of the same name by George Meredith.

He completed the more familiar orchestral version in 1920.

It found a wide audience last year when it was played as Hayley, played by Julie Hesmondhalgh, took a lethal cocktail to end her suffering on Coronation Street, following a battle with cancer.

The top five was completed by Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2, another Vaughan Williams work Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Elgar's Enigma Variations and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5.

The full poll - 300 pieces of music in total - also includes 12 pieces of music used to soundtrack video games, with two of them making the top 20.

Music from the Final Fantasy series, by Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu, is at number nine while The Elder Scrolls, composed by Bafta award-winner Jeremy Soule, is at number 11.

John Suchet, who presents a weekday show on the station, said: 'Twenty years after the very first Classic FM Hall of Fame countdown, I'm delighted that we've attracted so many votes for our chart.

'What I find truly exciting is the continued increase in a younger audience for classical music - I didn't expect to be thanking the video game industry for introducing the genre to a new generation of people, but it's wonderful.'

Lark Ascending was played as Hayley Cropper (Julie Hesmondhalgh) took a lethal cocktail to end her suffering on Coronation Street last year