Teh One Who Knocks
08-15-2012, 11:00 AM
The Mirror
http://i.imgur.com/osxrs.jpg
They have been the butt of jokes for years.
Now the residents of Shitterton in Dorset are braced for more toilet humour after it topped a poll of places with the most embarrassing names in Britain.
The village beat Scratchy Bottom, also in Dorset, and Brokenwind in Aberdeenshire to top the list of places with the most unfortunate names in the UK.
Dorset can boast three of the top ten, with Happy Snoring coming in tenth in the table which came as a result of polling 1,773 people.
Crapstone, on the edge of Dartmoor, Devon, is fourth while Golden Balls, which is five miles south of Oxford, is fifth, in the survey carried out by family history website, findmypast.co.uk.
Shitterton, which lies in Dorset’s Piddle Valley, has been called ‘the village that dare not speak its name’.
However, residents recently clubbed together to pay for a 1.5 ton slab of local marble, carved with the Shitterton name, to be placed by the roadside at the hamlet’s entrance.
This replaced a more conventional Shitterton road sign, which kept getting stolen by souvenir hunters.
The origins of the name Shitterton are uncertain but one theory has it that it means simply ‘the village on the stream that is used as an open sewer’.
Local blacksmith Eddie Butterfield, 50, has proudly lived in Shitterton for 20 years.
He said: “I am well used to all the comments you get from people you speak on the phone and the interest from visitors.
“I suppose it is titillating to people from outside the area but to me Shitterton is home.
“People come here and have their picture taken by the sign. If coming first in this survey brings more people to the village then that is a good thing.”
Ian Ventham, chairman of the parish council, said: “The name doesn’t bother us in the slightest.
"Shitterton also lies in the Piddle Valley, but so what?”
Scratchy Bottom is a cliff-top valley in rural Dorset, near the village of Chaldon Herring.
The valley’s name is thought to refer to the fact it is a rough and rugged hollow.
Debra Chatfield, of findmypast, said: “Dorset is definitely the top county for unfortunate place-names, with three in the top 10.
“You can perhaps judge the strength of the short-list from the quality of the names that failed to make it.”
These included Sandy Balls (Hampshire), Pratts Bottom (Kent) and North Piddle (Worcestershire).
Mrs Chatfield, a family historian, added: “If there were an Olympics for unlikely place-names, Britain would surely be good for a medal, if not the gold.
“It would face some strong competition, from U.S. place-names such as Toad Suck (Arkansas), Climax (Georgia) and Boring (Oregon).
“In the course of researching their family history, people can discover their ancestors came from somewhere with an unlikely, unfortunate or downright embarrassing name.
“It’s not the worst thing you might unearth when tracing your ancestry but some people are unsettled to discover their forebears came from somewhere called, say, Crackpot, Ugley or Happy Bottom.
“It can puncture the magic of making a genealogical discovery.”
Top 10 ‘most embarrassing or unfortunate’ UK place names
1 Shitterton (Dorset)
2 Scratchy Bottom (Dorset)
3 Brokenwind (Aberdeenshire)
4 Crapstone (Devon)
5 Golden Balls (Oxfordshire)
6 Ugley (Essex)
7 Crackpot (North Yorkshire)
8 Backside (Aberdeenshire)
9 Great Snoring (Norfolk)
10 Happy Bottom (Dorset)
http://i.imgur.com/osxrs.jpg
They have been the butt of jokes for years.
Now the residents of Shitterton in Dorset are braced for more toilet humour after it topped a poll of places with the most embarrassing names in Britain.
The village beat Scratchy Bottom, also in Dorset, and Brokenwind in Aberdeenshire to top the list of places with the most unfortunate names in the UK.
Dorset can boast three of the top ten, with Happy Snoring coming in tenth in the table which came as a result of polling 1,773 people.
Crapstone, on the edge of Dartmoor, Devon, is fourth while Golden Balls, which is five miles south of Oxford, is fifth, in the survey carried out by family history website, findmypast.co.uk.
Shitterton, which lies in Dorset’s Piddle Valley, has been called ‘the village that dare not speak its name’.
However, residents recently clubbed together to pay for a 1.5 ton slab of local marble, carved with the Shitterton name, to be placed by the roadside at the hamlet’s entrance.
This replaced a more conventional Shitterton road sign, which kept getting stolen by souvenir hunters.
The origins of the name Shitterton are uncertain but one theory has it that it means simply ‘the village on the stream that is used as an open sewer’.
Local blacksmith Eddie Butterfield, 50, has proudly lived in Shitterton for 20 years.
He said: “I am well used to all the comments you get from people you speak on the phone and the interest from visitors.
“I suppose it is titillating to people from outside the area but to me Shitterton is home.
“People come here and have their picture taken by the sign. If coming first in this survey brings more people to the village then that is a good thing.”
Ian Ventham, chairman of the parish council, said: “The name doesn’t bother us in the slightest.
"Shitterton also lies in the Piddle Valley, but so what?”
Scratchy Bottom is a cliff-top valley in rural Dorset, near the village of Chaldon Herring.
The valley’s name is thought to refer to the fact it is a rough and rugged hollow.
Debra Chatfield, of findmypast, said: “Dorset is definitely the top county for unfortunate place-names, with three in the top 10.
“You can perhaps judge the strength of the short-list from the quality of the names that failed to make it.”
These included Sandy Balls (Hampshire), Pratts Bottom (Kent) and North Piddle (Worcestershire).
Mrs Chatfield, a family historian, added: “If there were an Olympics for unlikely place-names, Britain would surely be good for a medal, if not the gold.
“It would face some strong competition, from U.S. place-names such as Toad Suck (Arkansas), Climax (Georgia) and Boring (Oregon).
“In the course of researching their family history, people can discover their ancestors came from somewhere with an unlikely, unfortunate or downright embarrassing name.
“It’s not the worst thing you might unearth when tracing your ancestry but some people are unsettled to discover their forebears came from somewhere called, say, Crackpot, Ugley or Happy Bottom.
“It can puncture the magic of making a genealogical discovery.”
Top 10 ‘most embarrassing or unfortunate’ UK place names
1 Shitterton (Dorset)
2 Scratchy Bottom (Dorset)
3 Brokenwind (Aberdeenshire)
4 Crapstone (Devon)
5 Golden Balls (Oxfordshire)
6 Ugley (Essex)
7 Crackpot (North Yorkshire)
8 Backside (Aberdeenshire)
9 Great Snoring (Norfolk)
10 Happy Bottom (Dorset)