BEST KEPT VILLAGE COMPETITION – 2022 WINNERS ANNOUNCED

This year’s CPRE Wiltshire Best Kept Village Competition has been sponsored for the first time by CCm Technologies of Swindon.

The first round of the competition saw the expert judging teams from the Wiltshire Branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England and from Wiltshire Council putting each village under the microscope in May and June. Thirty-three villages throughout the county were tested against the competition criteria which include tidiness, cleanliness, presentation, conservation and village community spirit. As ever the Parish Councils and their volunteers had clearly been hard at work, achieving encouragingly high standards and making the judges’ task that much more difficult.  Each village is judged within the categories of ‘Small’, ‘Medium’ and ‘Large’ and in the first round they are only judged within their own district: West Wiltshire, North Wiltshire, South Wiltshire and Kennet (East Wiltshire).

In July the winning villages in each district were then judged against each other in the County Round, using fresh judging teams. The final results are:

Large Village                                   Medium Village                               Small Village

1^st        Whiteparish    94 pts             1^st        Hindon              90 pts           1^st   Rushall           93 pts

2^nd       Bromham       86 pts             2^nd      All Cannings       88 pts           2^nd  Tytherington   91 pts

3^rd =     Box                85 pts             3^rd      Heytesbury        86 pts           3^rd   Stapleford      88 pts

3rd =    Hilperton        85 pts              4^th     Great Somerford 81 pts           4th   Charlton         86 pts

Note that different teams of judges were used in each of the three categories, so the points scored should not be contrasted between categories.

Laurence Kitching Award – Sponsored by Princeton Homes

The winning six villages from 2019 and 2021 were, as dictated by our rules, not allowed to compete in the main competition (there was no competition in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic).  Instead they were invited to enter the Laurence Kitching Award, also sponsored by CCm Technologies and often called the ‘Winner of Winners’ competition.  The results were:

1^st        Bratton                      2^nd       Urchfont                     3^rd  Ramsbury              4^th       Tilshead

(Two villages chose not to enter)

Newcomers Award

This award encourages villages which have not entered the Best Kept Village Competition for the previous five years to give it a go. It comes with a £150 cash prize and a certificate.  CPRE Wiltshire hopes it will encourage even more villages to enter in 2023. This year four such villages qualified to enter.

The results were:

1^st        Heytesbury            2^nd       Southwick                    3^rd Tytherington        4th   Knook

Merit Prize for Consistent Effort

A prize is awarded to the village that has been most consistently successful in the past six years but has not won the Laurence Kitching Award this year, nor the Merit Prize in 2019 or 2021.  In 2022 this has been won by Rushall, who have regularly been 1st or 2nd in the Kennet Small Village competition in recent years.