Rugby won an RHS Silver Gilt at the 2026 Britain in Bloom UK Finals. Wrexham took the Small City and City title with Gold, and Grimsby also got Silver Gilt.

Rugby has won an RHS Silver Gilt award at the Britain in Bloom UK Finals, the national stage of the Royal Horticultural Society’s community gardening contest.

The result is on the RHS’s 2026 awards and results page. The awards were presented at Rochdale Town Hall on Tuesday 20 October.

Rugby was one of three finalists in the Small City and City category. The results were:

Entry Region Award
Wrexham in Bloom Wales in Bloom Gold, category winner
Rugby in Bloom Heart of England in Bloom Silver Gilt
Grimsby in Bloom East Midlands in Bloom Silver Gilt

Silver Gilt is the second of the four RHS award levels, below Gold and above Silver and Bronze. The overall Britain in Bloom winner for 2026, out of 44 finalists across the UK, is Stonehouse in Gloucestershire, which also comes from the Heart of England region.

How Rugby got to the final

Rugby earned its place by being named overall winner of Heart of England in Bloom in 2025. The council said in October 2025 that the town had also won Gold in the regional small city category for the 16th year running, plus the judges’ award for horticultural excellence.

The Britain in Bloom judges toured the town on Wednesday 12 August. The council’s account of the visit lists the stops:

  • Caldecott Park: the community growing beds tended by Garden Organic, the Hill Street Youth and Community Centre and Rugby Eco Hub, and the improved bowling green and tennis courts
  • Rugby School’s grounds
  • Great Central Way, where Rugby Wildlife Group volunteers explained their conservation work
  • Whitehall Recreation Ground, with Butterfly Conservation Warwickshire’s garlic mustard planting for butterflies, the wildflower scrapes and the new memorial benches at the War Memorial gates

This year’s Rugby in Bloom theme was “attracting nature”, according to the council’s July release. That release also credits Onley Prison, where prisoners restored park benches and built nesting boxes, and Warwickshire College engineering students, who helped create the sensory garden in Caldecott Park.

Before the result, Cllr Maggie O’Rourke, the council’s portfolio holder for partnerships, health and wellbeing, said: “It’s an achievement in itself to make it through to the finals of Britain in Bloom.”

The regional result is still to come

Rugby was also judged in this year’s Heart of England in Bloom contest, on Tuesday 7 July. The council said in July that both sets of results would be announced in October. By 28 October we could find no published 2026 regional results, so whether Rugby has kept its run of Gold awards is not yet known. We will add it when it is published.

What it means for you

  • The parks on the judges’ route are open to everyone. Caldecott Park’s community growing beds and sensory garden, Great Central Way and Whitehall Rec’s wildflower areas are all free to visit.
  • Rugby in Bloom runs on volunteers. The council’s parks pages list the borough’s green spaces. Groups named in the entry, such as Rugby Wildlife Group and Butterfly Conservation Warwickshire, take volunteers.
  • Whitehall Rec is also where the borough’s Remembrance Sunday service is held; times and road closures for 8 November are on our Remembrance Sunday page.

Sources