Bark From The Park, Toppin Topography Continued!

Weird & Wonderful Place Names in Great Britain.

The cities, towns, and villages of Great Britain have gone head to head in a new survey to identify the most unfortunate place name. There were many contenders but according to ‘Find My Past’ the tiny hamlet of Shitterton on the edge of the village of Bere Regis came out on top. Residents got so fed up with pranksters stealing its’ sign they clubbed together to have a £680 one-and-a-half-tonne Purbeck stone version set in concrete made up.

Second was the valley of Scratchy Bottom which is thought to take its name from the fact that it is a rough and rugged hollow. We think that would go down a treat in Blogville!

Brokenwind was third, known as 'Broken Wynd' in the 19th century, with ‘Wynd’ being a Scots word for a narrow path that snakes between two larger roads.

Fourth came Crapstone, a picturesque village on the western edge of Dartmoor in Devon, just ahead of Golden Balls in Oxfordshire, Ugley in Essex, Crackpot in North Yorkshire, Backside in Aberdeenshire, Great Snoring in Norfolk and Happy Bottom in Dorset.

Surely we would get gold if there was an Olympics event for unlikely place names? Rude place names, such as Slag Lane in Haydock, Merseyside, was also on the list. The name simply refers to the slag heaps that were formerly a characteristic of the area. This was hotly contested by Hooker Road.

Then there is a small village in Kent called Pratts Bottom, Pratt coming from the Latin word Pratum meaning meadow. Our favourite though was the town of North Piddle, in rural Worcestershire, its’ name deriving from the old English word piddle referring to a marsh or fen, which, overtime lent its name to the nearby stream Piddle Brook. We can easily see a piddle or two in Blogvile!

The best of British and long may they continue! Let’s hope some politically correct idiot jobsworth doesn’t changes them because they may offend somebody!