AN honorary shield is to be erected in Ashton Keynes to mark the village's success in this year's Best Kept Large Village Competition.
Residents of the winning village will be turning out for a special presentation by members of the Council for the Protection of Rural England in Church Walk.
The president of the Wiltshire branch of the CPRE, Lieutenant-General Sir Maurice Johnston, will attend the ceremony to unveil a shield mounted on a six feet pole, which will remain in the village for a year.
Sunday's presentation, at 12.30pm, honours the 1,398-strong community's achievement in beating off stiff competition from 100 other villages in the county.
The CPRE secretary, Elizabeth Money-Kyrle, said Ashton Keynes's success was well deserved since it is situated on a busy road.
"There is a large church yard to maintain and a lot of open spaces in the village which always makes it harder," she said.
"The main road would be tricky to keep clean and tidy because people tend to chuck their rubbish out of car windows."
CPRE's annual competition aims to bring members of the community together in a combined effort to conserve the beauty and diversity of rural England.
The judges had five criteria in mind when deciding this year's winners, which included the maintenance of trees and hedges, the condition of bus shelters and telephone boxes and the absence of fly posters.
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