The results of Wiltshire's Best Kept Village are in....

The Hills Group CPRE Wiltshire Best Kept Village Competition 2017

This judging of this year’s Hills Group CPRE Wiltshire Best Kept Village Competition, sponsored by The Hills Group, is now complete.

The First Round of the competition saw the expert judging teams from the Wiltshire Branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England putting each village under the microscope. 39 villages throughout the county were tested against the competition criteria which look for tidiness, cleanliness, presentation and village community spirit. 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 of four districts: West Wiltshire, North Wiltshire, South Wiltshire and Kennet (East Wiltshire).

The winning villages in each district were then judged against each other in the County Round, using fresh judging teams including individual judges from Wiltshire Council. The final results were:

Large Village                                   Medium Village                               Small Village

 

1^st        Great Bedwyn                    1^st        Mildenhall                     1^st        Tollard Royal

2^nd       Bratton                              2^nd       Shaw               2^nd       Upper & Lower Seagry

3^rd =    Alderbury                          3^rd        Biddestone                      3^rd        Bishopstrow

3^rd =    Box                                   4^th        Hindon

Each winning village will be presented with an eight foot standard with mounted shield for their village green. Award ceremonies will be held sequentially at the three winning villages on Sunday 1^st October when CPRE Wiltshire’s President, the Lord-Lieutenant for Wiltshire, Mrs Sarah Troughton, will pull away the Union Flag surmounting the shield; commemorative plaques will be presented by both the CEO of The Hills Group, Mr Michael Hill and by the Chairman of Wiltshire Council. Cash prizes will be awarded to each winning village and to 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th placed villages.  All villages in the County Round will receive an additional certificate for coming top of their district in the First Round.

Laurence Kitching Award - Sponsored by Princeton Homes

The winning six villages from 2015 and 2016 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        Rushall                                  2^nd =    Aldbourne

2^nd =    All Cannings                         4^th        Great Somerford

The award will be presented to Rushall during the Presentation Day on 1^st October.

Newcomers' Award

For the third year running an award has been made available to encourage villages which have not entered the Best Kept Village Competition for the previous five years to give it a go. This year four such villages entered.  It comes with a £150 cash prize and CPRE Wiltshire hopes it will encourage even more villages to enter in 2018.

This year’s winner is Urchfont.

Merit Prize for Consistent Effort

A prize, awarded for the third time this year, is awarded to the village that has been most consistently successful in the past four years but has not won a main competition prize or Laurence Kitching Award this year.  In 2017 this has been won by Box, who have been 1^st or 2^nd in the West Wiltshire Large Village competition in each of the past four years.