ALDBOURNE has won the large village category of Wiltshire Best Kept Village competition, sponsored by the Hills Group,

Great Somerford, near Chippenham, won the medium village category with Wilcot, near Pewsey, being named best small village.

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, 45 villages throughout the county being judged on tidiness, cleanliness, presentation and village community spirit.

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.

The winning villages in each district were then judged against each other in the county round, using fresh judging teams including judges from Wiltshire Council.

Large village                                 

1: Aldbourne                             

2: Box                                      

3: Whiteparish                          

4: Bowerhill         

Medium village                              

1: Great Somerford                 

2: Shaw

Small village

1: Wilcot

2: Ansty

3: Hankerton

4: Bishopstrow

“Again, this was a tough competition with very close placings. Each village showed a high standard in many areas …. The efforts of each village were readily apparent,” the judges' comments read.

“This was an extremely difficult round to judge. All four villages had obviously put in a lot of hard work creating an admirable and pleasurable ambiance.”

Each winning village will be presented with, and keep, an eight foot standard with mounted shield for a year emplaced on their village green.

Award ceremonies will be held at the three winning villages on Sunday, October 11, by CPRE Wiltshire’s president, the Lord-Lieutenant for Wiltshire, Mrs Sarah Troughton.

Cash prizes will be awarded to each winning village and to second and third placed villages, which will also receive a certificate.

All villages in the County Round will receive an additional certificate for coming top of their district in the First Round.

The Merit Prize for Consistent Effort, a new prize this year, has been won by Box, which has won the North Wiltshire Large Village competition in each of the past four years.

For the second year running Smiths Gore, now part of Savills, sponsored an award to encourage 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.

West Ashton won with Chute named the runner-up.

A spokesman said: "Finally it is important to point out that this competition could not take place without the very generous contributions of our sponsors, the support of Wiltshire Council and of course the immense hard work put in by individual parish councils and villagers.

"It is a joint effort but one we feel benefits Wiltshire and in particular the participating villages."