News and Events

On 2nd July on a lovely sunny afternoon two judges came to visit Elsham to carry out judging for the East Midlands in Bloom competition. We began in the village hall with introductions and a presentation by myself outlining the work that the parish council has done over the past year to improve the environment in the village, and the many volunteers and organisations that we have worked with to keep Elsham looking so attractive. You will find a copy of this presentation on this page. Both judges were from outside the county so unfamiliar with Elsham and the area. We did a full circuit of the village from the Village Hall down to the main Elsham sign on New Street, up to the crossroads, round the top of Front Street and then into the quarry to admire the wildflowers including common spotted orchids. We returned down through the churchyard and Church Street. Both judges were very complimentary about the village and acknowledged the work of many people who had particularly attractive front gardens. As this is the first time that we have entered this competition, it was our first opportunity to show off Elsham and Andrew and I felt very proud of how good everything looked. Thank you so much to everyone who helps us with flower displays and takes care of their gardens.
The award presentation will be in September, and we look forward to seeing what level we achieved, and to receiving ideas for how we can improve further.

Click here to read our presentation to the judges Opens in a new window

On Tuesday 3rd of October we were very pleased to welcome Vee Harness to come and talk to us about how to be hedgehog friendly in our gardens. These mammals really need our help; in 1950 there were 50 million hedgehogs in the UK but now that has fallen to less than 2 million. Everyone who attended the meeting learnt a lot about how to recognise the signs of hedgehogs being around and how to help them during the winter with supplementary feeding of dry cat biscuits. Remarkably, they can travel 1 1/2 to 2 miles a night so any one of us could have hedgehogs visiting our gardens.

Everyone who attended the meeting was keen to be a part of our hedgehog project funded by the Tesco grant and so each of them has received feeding bowls, cat biscuits, hay, and a lovely hedgehog house to set up in the garden.
We are asking residents to Please Please make hedgehog highways in fences around gardens so that the hedgehogs can move around the village without having to use too many roads. It just needs to be a 15 centimetres square cut out the bottom of a fence panel, or a trench dug under a fence. If you need help doing this, we can organise for our handyman to come round and do this for you. We would also love to know if you see signs of hedgehogs or hedgehogs themselves in your gardens or while you are out and about in the evening. This would help us to make a map of where the hedgehogs are visiting and where we can best place the supplementary food and houses for them.

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On 5th July, Anglian Water sent four volunteers down into the village. They did an excellent job of sanding down and painting the picnic benches in the play park, and the telephone box, which now looks fantastic with its planters, new paint and new ‘Telephone’ signs. We hope to see them back again next year when we are in need of volunteers. A big thank you to the team at Anglian Water who organised it for us, and to the volunteers themselves.

Elsham has entered the Best Kept Village competition again this year and we are hoping to repeat our 2022 success. The summer planting has recently been completed and as in previous years, the plants and compost were provided by the Parish Council. Sandra Van Oosterhout has planted up the tubs and planters at the Village Hall, helped by Amanda Hall. Jane Ewan has planted up the Doll Lane snicket planters at the New Street End. Sandra did the Maltkiln Lane end. Di and I planted up the phone box area, the play park planters, the Elsham sign beds at either end of the village, the circle and the triangle and all of the planters under the street signs except where mentioned below.
As I said last year, without additional volunteers who are prepared to water and tend an area there would be no point in planting anything, so I’d like to say a huge thank you to the following people who have agreed to look after the planted areas near where they live, making this a real village effort:

• Martyn Clark – is mowing the grass at the Hall Lane Circle and the Barnetby Lane Triangle. He also looks after the lovely churchyard.
• Ian Bowmer – will water the plants at the Barnetby Lane triangle.
• Clare Tully – will water the Hall Lane circle.
• Terry Howard – will water the phone box area, the Elsham sign bed on New Street, the play park planters and the New Street sign planter near Woodland Drive.
• Christine Busby – will water the Lancaster bed and the village hall bank and will help Sandra to water the tubs and planters at the Village Hall.
• Linda & Ron Baxter – will water the planter under the Astley Corner sign.
• Larraine Guest – has planted up and will water the Church Street sign planter near Hunters Lodge
• Paul Richardson – will water the Front Street sign planter near the triangle.
• Joan & Colin Mee – will water the planters on Maltkiln Lane near Dunns Paddock and at the Maltkiln Lane/Front Street corner.
• Lucy Gilchrist– will water the Doll Lane snicket planters at the Maltkiln Lane end.
• Trevor Hudson – will water the Doll Lane snicket planters at the New Street end.
• Colin & Agnes Marris – have planted up and will water the planter under the Chapel Lane sign at the New Street junction.
• Jordan Finney – will water the planter under the Woodland Drive sign.
• Sai Vishwanath – will water the planter under the New Street sign at the crossroads and the tub under the plough.

Last year, the Best Kept Village judges were very impressed by a number of the front gardens they saw as they walked around the village, so please try to keep your own property looking good and let’s hope for more compliments this year. Judging will be at the end of July.

Andrew Horner

What a fantastic Coronation Big Lunch it turned out to be! After worrying about soggy sausages in the rain, we were glad of the gazebo for the shade it provided from the sun – it was the warmest day of the year so far and that helped to create the lovely atmosphere we had. Friends and neighbours chatted while burgers were flipped and sausages were turned, and we had a fabulous selection of salads and cakes donated.

The day started with a few scratched heads as the large gazebo turned out to be lots of pieces with no instructions … thankfully there were some experienced tent/gazebo people on hand! Stalls were set up for the raffle and tombola with prizes very generously donated by residents, a name the Jack Russell stall for a lovely soft toy crocheted by Helen Lynch, along with the favourite Splat the Rat and a Find the Treasure game. Along with the cake stall inside the village hall, again full of donated cakes and sweet treats, the village event raised a fantastic £625 for charity. Thank you so much to everyone who brought BBQs and cooked, manned a stall for us, or helped with setting up and clearing away.

The beautiful weather held on into the evening and as the local band Common Faults struck up, the party continued in and outside of the village hall – a fitting celebration and great occasion to remember.

The best decorated property prizes went to Larraine Guest on Church Street for her beautiful handmade flower crown and decorations, and to Sue Everett at Astley Corner for her Teddy Bears’ picnic.

Eleanor Allison won the Jellycat Jack Russell in the Treasure Hunt, with Freddie Yeo winning the £20 Amazon voucher and Alice winning some sweets. Hope you all enjoyed taking part.

 Thank you everyone for coming to celebrate together!