Cheeky Town Names: A Hilarious Journey Through England's Most Unusual Place Names
What’s in a name? Quite a lot if you ask the burgers of Shitterton!
Victorian poet Mathew Arnold described Oxford as a city of dreaming spires. Many place names lend themself to lyric descriptions such as these. Sadly, many do not. Take the River Piddle, for example. Victorian or otherwise, no poet ever wrote, 'Where the mighty River Piddle flows down to the sea.' Some places have romantic names, others don’t, as our bathroom muse Griselda Gruntfuttock explains in her brief ramble through the unfortunately named dwelling places of England and beyond.
Shitterton
Shitterton comes from the Old English words for sewer. And the word 'ton,' meaning a town. Hence, Shitterton is, by definition,' the place by the sewer.' This must have once challenged local real estate copywriters keen to present their properties in the best possible light.
'This compact and bijou pied-à-terre, borders the edge of a delightful public sanitation facility — a 'must-buy' for history buffs.'
Scratch Arse Ware
We may laugh at a town named Shitterton, but spare a thought for the townsfolk of Scratch Arse Ware.
We've all done it. Scratched our arse, that is. Folklore suggests we all do it when first getting out of bed. Scratching your arse is a fact of life. It generally doesn't bother us. However, we cannot underestimate the unique charm and character that comes with residing in Scratch Arse Ware.
Scratch Arse Ware is an area of limestone hills in Purbeck, Dorset. 'Ware' is an old English noun for pasture set aside for rough grazing. Putting two and two together (and possibly getting five) — did a 17th-century farmhand, herding his Herefords to a hardier holding, once pause to scratch his arse there, hence the name?
Slack Bottom, Yorkshire.
And since we're on the subject of bums, let me point out that Slack Bottom is not an unsightly condition like bingo wings, afflicting past-their-prime fashion models. It is a place in Yorkshire.
Sandy Balls, New Forest, England.
Sandy Balls is another example, like Slack Bottom, of a town named after an unsightly bodily condition. As well as being a minor irritation suffered mostly by Naturists after a visit to the beach, Sandy Balls is a place in England's New Forest.
Iron Knob, Queensland, Australia
Town planners have named some places after a much-desired male conditions. Iron Knob, for instance, relates to a state men often wish they could engineer on demand (but regularly can't).
Longdong Avenue, Shanghai, China.
Let’s look much further afield for our penultimate example, Longdong Avenue, Shanghai. Some have suggested that male residents along this tree-lined street once had to 'measure up' before being permitted to live there. This is likely to be a fiction conjured up by Uranus Wiper copywriters to drum up trade in the shape of a cheap gag.
Six-mile bottom, Cambridgeshire, England.
Finally, let's mosey on over to Six-mile Bottom in Cambridgeshire. And here's a fun tidbit to leave you with: Uranus Wiper toilet rolls boast a generous 360 sheets, making them more than capable of handling the needs of even a Six-mile Bottom.
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