THOUSANDS of pounds was raised at a fayre supporting bees and the environment earlier this month - which was given a helping hand by the Duchess of Cornwall.
More than 500 visitors attended the Bee Fayre at Wootton St Lawrence Church meadows on August 6 and enjoyed plenty of fun for all the family.
Throughout the day their were activities to take part in, along with a raffle and the opportunity to learn more about the history of bees.
One of the star items in the raffle was a gold plated bee broach donated by Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.
Organiser Ken Robson said: "It was a brilliant success on a blue skied day, we were delighted to see three generations there - children, parents and grandparents, all there to experience the bee story.
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"We wanted people to be able to connect with nature and through that understand the importance of bees. What we saw across the day was local communities coming together and that it what we wanted to achieve.
"We are delighted and extremely excited that we generated such a big local interest, which is what we want to build on for our future event next year."
The environmentally-friendly event raised more than £2,000 which will be split between three good causes - Friends of St Lawrence at Wooton St Lawrence Church, Bees Abroad and The Charles Butler Project.
Next year's event will honour the 400th anniversary of Charles Butler's groundbreaking book The Feminine Monarchie which recognised that the queen bee was the head of the honey bee colony - he was the first person to confirm this.
"Charles Butler wasn't just a beekeeper, he was the father of English bee keeping and we want to celebrate how we saw the environment 400 years ago," Ken said.
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"What we see coming together is a something very special within the St Lawrence community, a bigger involvement with fellow bee keepers and a celebration that will take place within Charles's church and on his fields where he would of had his 60 bee hives.
"We just want to share that with all the communities and tell the bee story around it."
Next year's Bee Fayre is set to take place on August 19 and 20.
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