FOUR communities are celebrating after winning their categories in Wiltshire's Best Kept Village competition.

Ramsbury (Large), Tilshead (Medium) and Castle Eaton (Small) came top in their respective categories.

Urchfont won the Laurence Kitching Award – also called the Winner of Winners’ competition for the six winning villages from the last two years the competition was held.

Bishopstrow won a Merit Prize for consistent effort after coming first in the West Wiltshire Small Village competition over the past four years.

This year’s CPRE Wiltshire Best Kept Village competition was sponsored by The Hills Group for the eighth year.

Awards will be presented on September 26 by Wiltshire's Lord Lieutenant Mrs Sarah Rose Troughton; Mike Hills, chief executive Hills Group, and by a senior member of Wiltshire Council.

Cash prizes and framed certificates will be awarded to each winning village and to second and third-placed villages and to the Best Newcomer and Merit Award winners.

Cash prizes will also be awarded to fourth placed villages. All villages who won in the first round will also receive a framed certificate.

The annual competition was not held in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the first round, expert judging teams from the Wiltshire branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England and from Wiltshire Council put 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.

In the first round, villages 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.

Results: Large Village: 1 Ramsbury 90 points, 2 Whiteparish 84 pts, 3 Blunsdon 78 pts, 4 Hilperton 77 pts. Medium Village: 1 Tilshead 86 pts, 2 All Cannings 85 pts, 3 Oaksey 72.5 pts, 4 Sutton Veny 69 pts. Small Village: 1 Castle Eaton 97 pts, 2 Woodborough 88 pts, 3 Bishopstrow 81 pts.