As you can tell from the above, I am able to post pics
again. The
problem was not with me or with my computer but with Blogger, the blog service
provided by Google. Apparently bloggers
have been discussing the problem in various forums, it has been causing quite a
few headaches.
To make up for the lack
of images I am going to reprint a further item from a recent Daily Mail, it has some quite amusing pics to go with the story. Enjoy . . .
Welcome to the hilariously-named villages locals insist are
lovelier than they sound
14 August 2012
The towns and idyllic hamlets of rural Britain have
gone head to head in a new survey - to find the UK's most unfortunate place
name.
There
were many contenders, but the tiny collection of homes known as Shitterton on
the edge of the village of Bere Regis , has come out on top.
The
tiny settlement between Dorchester and Poole beat the nearby valley of Scratchy
Bottom, near Durdle Door in Dorset and Brokenwind in Aberdeenshire in the
survey by www.findmypast.co.uk.
Britain's
worst place name: Shitterton in Dorset has been voted the UK's most
embarrassing place name
Fighting
for the top spot: Shitterton even beat off competition from Crapstone in Devon
Picturesque:
Sandy Balls, situated in the New Forest, was named after the dome-shaped gravel
and known as Sandyballas during the reign of Henry VII
Shitterton
is a very literal English translation of the village name recorded in Norman
French in the 11th century Domesday Book as Scatera or Scetra which means a
little town that is on the stream of a midden or sewer.
But
Ian Ventham, chairman of Bere Regis Parish Council and proud Shitterton
resident, said he does not find the name of the hamlet, with its long history,
embarrassing. The retired RNLI director
added: 'It is a perfect rural hamlet with thatched cottages and idyllic Dorset
countryside. Those of us who live here
are not the least bit embarrassed by it.'
Shitterton
came above the nearby valley of Scratchy Bottom, named after the rugged and
rough hollow, which was used as a location for the 1967 film
Rude
place names: 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.
A
small village in Kent called Pratts Bottom - Pratt coming from the Latin word
Pratum meaning Meadow- was also in list
Shitterton
hit the headlines in 2010 when residents got so fed up with pranksters stealing
the standard road signs displaying the name that they clubbed together and
bought a £680 one-and-a-half-tonne Purbeck stone version set in concrete.
According
to the website, the valley of Scratchy Bottom is thought to take its name from
the fact that it is a rough and rugged hollow.
Brokenwind
was known as 'Broken Wynd' in the 19th century, with wynd, the website said, a
Scots word for a narrow path that snakes or winds between two larger roads.
Ancient
names: The name of the Gloucestershire village of Old Sodbury comes from
corrupted Old English that would have meant ' The fortified village of Soppa'
referring to a Roman fort
Back
Passage in the city of London, close to Smithfield market and the Barbican,
derives its name from the fact that it is a passageway running around the back
row of a number of buildings allowing access to their rear entrances
All
in the saying: Ugley, in Essex, is commonly pronounced as 'Usley '
Crapstone,
a picturesque village on the western edge of Dartmoor in Devon, came fourth in
the survey of 1,773 people, 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.
'If
there were an Olympics for unlikely place names, Britain would surely be good
for a medal, if not the gold', said Debra Chatfield, a family historian at
findmypast.co.uk. 'In the course of
researching their family history, people can discover that their ancestors came
from somewhere with an unlikely, unfortunate or downright embarrassing name. Some
people are unsettled to discover that their forebears came from somewhere
called, say, Crackpot, Ugley or Happy Bottom.'
The
town of North Piddle, in rural Worcestershire, got its name from the old
English word piddle referring to a marsh or fen, which, overtime lent its name
to the nearby stream Piddle Brook
Hooker
Road in Norwich was named after William Jackson Hooker - a Botanist whose
career eventually led him becoming Director of the Royal Gardens at Kew - who
was born in Norwich in 1785
even funnier at http://www.squidoo.com/embarassing-names names and towns for a laugh
ReplyDelete