South Downs student scoops top university prize

Victoria Menzies, 26, who is originally from Thakeham, has been awarded this year’s Pilkington Farms Partnership Prize for being the top performing student in the first two years of her course at the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester.

Victoria initially trained as a gardener obtaining her Royal Horticultural Society level 3 qualification before setting up Thakeham Garden Company which she ran for three years.

However, in 2021, towards the end of the Covid pandemic, she decided to follow her heart and enrolled on the BSc Rural Land Management course at Gloucestershire university.

She said: “When I left school I started studying a similar degree at Reading University but then I was unwell and so I left Reading after only about six months. Once I was better, I trained as a gardener and then set up my business in 2019.

“The Covid pandemic changed things for a lot of people and, while my business was going well, I always knew that land management was what I had always really wanted to do and I think the pandemic just made me realise that I should pursue my dream. Coming back to rural land management just felt like the natural thing to do.”

The Pilkington Farms Partnership Prize, which covers the winning student’s final year tuition fees, is given annually to the top-performing undergraduate student in their second year of study on a land or property undergraduate degree at the Royal Agricultural University.

The prize was created by Richard Pilkington, an alumnus and friend to the university’s land and property graduates. It is designed to reward academic performance and to celebrate excellence and innovation in real estate and land management and was first awarded in 2021.

It is awarded based on sustained, excellent, academic performance and is given in 50/50 increments at the beginning of semesters one and two of the student’s final year.

Victoria added: “In my first year at the RAU, Alice Crump, a third-year student who had won the Pilkington Farms Partnership Prize in its first year, gave a talk about her time at the RAU and mentioned the prize. I remember thinking at the time ‘wouldn’t that be nice’ but it didn’t occur to me then that it would be me in 2023.

“I was so delighted when I got the call to say I had won – it was completely out of the blue but a really lovely surprise. Returning to education as a self-funded mature student who has worked full time and had my own business was a big decision, so this prize makes a huge difference.”

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Alongside her studies, Victoria had a placement with the land and property agents Savills this summer and has continued to work with them at weekends in their Cirencester residential office and also as a rural assistant, which has given her valuable hands-on experience.

She added: “I have had a few emails with Richard Pilkington and I hope we will be able to meet up soon. I am just so grateful to him for setting up this prize and, one day, I would love to be in a position where I am able to do something similar and give something back in the way that he has.”