Pete Hughes on the rustic charms of Wantage, in the heart of the Vale of White Horse.

After nearly two millennia of continuous habitation, the peaceful market town of Wantage is changing more now than ever.

The population is set to double as 5,500 homes are due to be built around the town and the neighbouring village of Grove in the next 15 years.

In November, the town centre was crowned best in the country in a national Government awards scheme for its innovative use of empty units for pop-up shops and community hubs.

And the sense of community in Wantage feels stronger than ever: the current mayor Fiona Roper's annual Alfred’s Day celebrations, celebrating the town's most famous son King Alfred, draws thousands to watch a Saxon battle re-enactment at the recreation ground in September.

In June, Wantage Carnival fills the town centre with fairground rides, sticky treats and thousands
of revellers. The carnival, which was anannual tradition for decades, was revived after a 25-year absence in 2013 by Wantage’s “charity champion” Ray Collins – a man held in almost as much esteem as the mayor herself.

Mr Collins, manager of Peter Ledbury electricals, is also at the helm of Wantage Race for Life which see hundreds of people run, jog and walk a route around the town in April to raise thousands of pounds for cancer research.

He also organises a Christmas Day dinner for the lonely at a Wantage care home with food supplied by the town’s Waitrose and is leading a campaign to get new play equipment at the recreation ground.

The town’s 1,800-pupil secondary school, King Alfred's Academy, is the heart of the community for hundreds of families.

It is currently in the middle of a £14m expansion plan to help it take children from the new homes.

At present, the school is idiosyncratically spread across three sites in the east, west and centre of town, and students and children travel between them on different days of the week.

The £14m plan will see East Site, home to Wantage's only youth club The Sweatbox, sold off and the two remaining sites expanded and upgraded. It is children and teenagers from The Sweatbox who organise the town's other main annual celebration, Rock in the Park, a two-day music festival in the recreation ground which sees dozens of local and national acts perform.

For the more high-brow, the annual Not Just Betjeman literary festival in October celebrates the town's second most famous son – one-time poet laureate John Betjeman, who lived there for decades.

And for the months of the year when there aren’t any festivals going on, Wantage boasts more than 10 pubs and is a short drive from the historic Ridgeway for long, improving walks to work off the calories from the beer.