A village near Winchester has held a successful fun run in aid of a local pre-school.

Hundreds of spectators watched as young and old attempted the Barton Stacey fun.

The event has been held every year for the past 11 years, to raise money for the village’s Cygnets Playgroup.

The group runs as charitable organisation and it needs to raise extra funds to survive. Also the playgroup are intending on moving to new premises and extending their opening hours and funds will go towards this.

The Barton Stacey fun run had double the number of participants as previous years according to the event organiser Lizzie Frost, who is also on the committee of Cygnet Playgroup.

Of the event Lizzie said: “I can’t tell you how wonderful it was. The compliments have been coming in from around the village. It’s been quite staggering. “ She added: “It was our most successful fun run yet. It showed a rural Hampshire community all pulling together. This year we had lots of serious runners coming to it. “ As well as running there was entertainment from the Jubilee Trad Jazz Band, a bouncy castle, face painting and the Sutton Scotney fire station brought their fire engine, however they were called out to an emergency during the day.

This year there was a 10k run, a 3k run and a number of small fun runs. In total there were over 160 runners, of all ages.

One participant was Bob Underwood who had a stroke in December. He did the 3K in his wheelchair along with his family. His wife pushed him most of the way round. When he crossed the finish line there was a standing ovation from the large crowd.

Cygnets Playgroup have said that the event raised in the region of £4,500 for the future running or their organisation.

Winners of the main races were 10km Male- Matt King, 10km Female- Penny Rattray, 3km Male Hamish Clark and 3km Female Isla Bircham.

This year the event was sponsored by Toast, a chimney sweeping company, Landmarc Services, Raymond Brown and Alexander Sports.