BEST KEPT VILLAGE COMPETITION – WINNERS ANNOUNCED

This year’s CPRE Wiltshire Best Kept Village Competition has been sponsored by The Hills Group for an eighth consecutive year: The Competition was not held in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.

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-nine 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        Ramsbury      90 pts             1^st        Tilshead           86 pts             1^st   Castle Eaton      97 pts

2^nd       Whiteparish   84 pts             2^nd       All Cannings     85 pts             2^nd  Woodborough   88 pts

3^rd        Blunsdon      78 pts             3^rd        Oaksey           72.5 pts           3^rd   Bishopstrow      81 pts

4^th        Hilperton      77 pts              4^th        Sutton Veny    69 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 2018 were, as dictated by our rules, not allowed to compete in the main competition but were invited to enter the Laurence Kitching Award, sponsored by Princeton Homes and often called the ‘Winner of Winners’ competition.  The results were:

1^st        Urchfont                    2^nd       Biddestone                                  3^rd  Ansty

4^th        Bratton                     5^th        Charlton (near Malmesbury)          6^th Hullavington

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 2022. This year five such villages qualified to enter.

The results were:

1^st        Castle Eaton             2^nd       Maiden Bradley                    3^rd = Ham, and Tadpole Garden Village

5^th        Bulkington

Merit Prize for Consistent Effort

A prize is awarded to the village that has been most consistently successful in the past four years but has not won the Laurence Kitching Award this year, nor the Merit Prize in 2019.  In 2021 this has been won by Bishopstrow, who have regularly been 1^st in the West Wiltshire Small Village competition in recent years.

First Round Results