Ian Townsend celebrates local success in the best kept villages competition . . .

Four Oxfordshire villages have won the top awards in the Millennium Best Kept Village competition. Adderbury took the winners' class award, Stanford in the Vale won the large villages section, Combe captured the medium, and Souldern scooped the small villages section.

Combe has not won the award before, but the others were previous winners Adderbury last year, Souldern in 1987 and Stanford in 1982.

Judges praised the way the villages have been maintained, the lack of graffiti and litter, the well-tended gardens and allotments and the general air of communities with a wealth of civic pride. Stanford's success will be reported immediately on www.stanford-it-vale.org the village's website.

Manager Ashley Hellier said: "It's wonderful to have won this olde-worlde type of award and to be able to report it in the latest hi-tech newsletter. It shows that villages need not be behind the times."

Mr Hellier, who helps organise the village festival, added: "Many people in a wide range of organisations have put a great deal of work into keeping our village in good heart. They are to be con- gratulated." At Souldern, parish council chairman David Couzens said: "We have won the award several times before, but nothing since 1987.

"This is one of the prettiest villages in Oxfordshire, complete with thatched cottages, a pond in front of the church and so on.

"But though we have no pub, post office or shop, it is still a living village. The population is only 300, but we have more than 70 children here to keep it alive. We are highly delighted to add a further plaque to our previous awards."

Mike Green, chairman of Combe parish council, stressed that winning the award was not a one-man effort.

"Everyone in the village put something into it, picking up litter, keeping their frontages smart, and so on. Parish council member Sue Goodman worked hard to publicise the competition and to urge people to keep the place up to scratch.

"In the past few years we have been in the small villages class, but this time we've been put with the medium villages. It's a great achievement to have won." Organisers say the number of villages in the competition fell slightly to 60, but four new villages entered Fulbrook, Letcombe Bassett, Swyncombe and Filkins with Broughton Poggs.

And this year's winners are being invited to take part in the Daily Telegraph national Village of the Year competition, which takes into account a community's social as well as physical attributes. Runners-up to Adderbury in the winners' class for those who have won in previous years were Cassington and East Hagbourne.

Behind Stanford came Horspath and Kennington, and in the medium villages section Freeland and Milton-under-Wychwood came second and third.

Runners-up to Souldern were Checkendon, Hailey, Great Milton and Cote.

The Royal British Legion's annual war memorial competition saw Kennington win the Humphries Green cup and Upper Heyford the Parncutt Cup.

The Council for the Protection of Rural England makes conservation awards, which went to Great Milton for its Old Field reserve, Adderbury for its lakes and Alvescot for its churchyard.