BEST KEPT VILLAGE COMPETITION – 2024 WINNERS ANNOUNCED

The best kept villages in Wiltshire for 2024 have been decided as the results of the CPRE Wiltshire Best Kept Village Competition are announced.

Ashton Keynes, Upper and Lower Seagry and Hankerton, all in North Wiltshire came top in their respective size categories and are this year’s winners.

Urchfont, 5 miles south-east of Devizes, has won the Laurence Kitching Award – also called the Winner of Winners’ competition – out of the six winning villages from the last two years in which the competition was held.

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 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

(max 98)                               (max 98)                         (max 77)

1^st Ashton Keynes 88 pts  1^st Seagry     97 pts       1^st Hankerton 71 pts

2^nd Alderbury        87 pts  2^nd= SuttonVeny 94 pts 2^nd WestDean 69.5 pts

3^rd Staverton        83 pts   2^nd= Froxfield 94 pts    3^rd Tytherington 66 pts

4^th Seend             80 pts  4^th  Dinton   93 pts         (Kennet no entrant)

Because small villages don’t usually have some of the features seen in larger villages (e.g. pubs, schools, playing fields and shops) they were marked against a condensed list of criteria with a smaller maximum score.  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 “Winner of Winners” Award – sponsored by idverde

The winning six villages from 2022 and 2023 were, as dictated by our rules, not allowed to compete in the main competition but were invited to enter the Laurence Kitching Award, often called the ‘Winner of Winners’ competition.  In 2024 this award was sponsored for the first time by idverde, who provide grounds maintenance services for Wiltshire.

Paul Ashman, Community Engagement Manager of idverde working with Wiltshire Council, commented “idverde felt that this was just the event that idverde as a company should be supporting, as it fits into what they are about in Wiltshire, supporting the community. What better way than sponsoring such a great community event involving the Wiltshire villages, making it a better place to live. idverde is looking forward to presenting the awards to the Winner of Winners on the 22^nd September”.

The results were:

1^st  Urchfont      2^nd       Bratton       3^rd  Rushall      4^th        Tockenham

(Hindon and Whiteparish qualified but did not enter)

Newcomers Award – also sponsored by idverde

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.  In 2024 this award was also sponsored for the first time by idverde. CPRE Wiltshire hopes it will encourage even more villages to enter in 2025. This year three such villages qualified to enter.

The results were:

1^st   West Dean   2^nd   Compton Chamberlayne     3^rd    Staverton

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 2022 or 2023.  In 2024 this has been won by All Cannings, who have regularly been 1^st or 2^nd in the Kennet Medium Village competition and in the County Medium Village section, and who won the Laurence Kitching Award in 2018.

Overall judging

As usual the judging teams found that the general standard of presentation was very high in all villages.  Clearly a lot of effort had been put into ensuring that features such as village greens, paths, churchyards and other communal areas were clean and attractive to passers-by.  Judging also looks at the external areas of buildings (not inside) and in most cases these had received a lot of attention by village teams. Many judges commented on the excellent community spirit that was evident from the villages’ reports, from noticeboards and on websites.