Villagers near Malmesbury have amazed themselves by raising £4,000 in a year for Dorothy House Hospice in memory of former regulars at The New Inn in Upper Seagry.

After raising £1,000 for the charity in 2012, locals voted to keep fundraising in recognition of the support Dorothy House provides to numerous local families in the area.

Landlady Sarah Adkins said: “We thought £1,000 was brilliant so we said we would do it again.

“We held raffles and quiz and bingo nights and then we had three or four shooting parties come in over the winter season and they started to give us their fine money (where different groups have to pay up if they don’t hit targets etc). They came in once a fortnight and the minimum they gave us was £40, up to about £120.

“By the end of June we couldn’t believe we had already reached our £1,000 mark, and that was just from our bingo and quiz nights.

“I don’t really know how we all did it. Everyone was just brilliant.

“Around here Dorothy House have helped someone in the village at one time that most people know,” added Mrs Adkins, the mother of four-year-old Grace.

“We have lost a couple of our big character customers over the last couple of years and Dorothy House was really good to them and their families.

“It’s really humbling that we thought our £4,000 was amazing only to find it is less than one day of funding for them, but we are going to keep going and the customers have been fantastic.

“We are aiming for £2,000 this year; if we can match last year that will be brilliant but we are not going to put that pressure on ourselves.”

Mrs Adkins, her husband Karl and her parents Helena and John Greenhill, who are all involved in running the pub, helped hand over the cheque last week.