JUDGING for this year’s Best Kept Village competition is under way and Dilton Marsh and Bratton could both find success at the county competition that seeks to find the best kept villages where community spirit is strong.
Dilton Marsh have been entered in the first round of the West Wiltshire district category and Bratton, who won the award in 2019, has been entered in the Laurence Kitching Award alongside other villages that have been crowned previously. Both villages are in the ‘large village’ category.
The competition, which is run by The Campaign to Protect Rural England’s (CPRE) seeks to find the villages that are best looked after by their inhabitants and where community spirit is strong. It is not aimed at finding the prettiest villages, but rather those where villagers make the best of their surroundings.
The judges look at elements in the village including tidiness, cleanliness, presentation and village community spirit. Judging in the first round, within each of the four former districts of Wiltshire, will continue until mid-June.
The four winners in each of the three size categories (large – population over 1000; medium – population 300 to 1000; and small – population under 300) will then be judged in July to determine the three best kept villages in Wiltshire for 2022.
This year 29 villages have entered. Prizes of £200, £100, £60 and £30 will be won by the winners, runners up, third and fourth-placed villages in each size category.
Bratton cannot enter the main competition as the rules state that a village who won in 2019 or 2021 cannot participate in the main award, so it has been entered the Laurence Kitching Award, alongside other previous winners.
The three winning villages are given an eight-foot standard with mounted shield for a year, which is placed on their village green. The award sceremony will be held at each of these villages on Sunday 25th September when CPRE Wiltshire’s president, the Lord-Lieutenant for Wiltshire, Sarah Troughton, will pull away the Union Flag surmounting the shield.
