Quirky place names in England

Bizarre names

There are many locations in England with outlandish names. Some are rude, some are funny and some are just, well, really silly.

Here are are some of my favourites :

Beer

Beer is a picturesque little village on the coast of Devon. I am sure you can have a beer in Beer, but its name isn’t related to the drink. It is from the Old English bearu which meant grove, and this referred to the vegetation that originally surrounded the village.

Bell End 

This village in Worcerstershire shares its name with the British slang for part of the male genitalia, and has a secondary meaning, also slang,  which applies to someone who is annoying. Not to be used in polite company, unless you are referring to the location, of course.  Bell End won a competition in 2016 when it was voted the most hilarious place name in Britain.

Crackpot

Crackpot, a perjorative word for someone with irrational ideas, is also the name of a village in Yorkshire. It is believed to be the amalgation of an old English word, kranka, meaning crow,  and the word pot from Viking, which referred to a rift or a cavity. As is the case with many other place names, it describes what the settlers first spotted when they arrived at the location.

Giggleswick

Well, first of all, the name Giggleswick just makes me want to giggle. This town in the Yorkshire dales has the classic Anglo-Saxon ending – wick, (also appearing as –wich and -wyke in other place names) which meant dwelling or settlement.  The giggles bit  doesn’t have anything to do with laughing though. It’s because the particular site  in question belonged to Gichel, according to A Dictionary of British Place Names.

Pant

There are three places called Pant in Wales and one in England, namely in Shropshire, near the Welsh border. In the Welsh language, a pant is a valley, a dip or a hollow.  Pant in Shropshire is , unsurprisingly, located in a dip directly below Llanymynech Rocks Nature Reserve. In the same way I would like to have a beer in Beer, I would also like to pant in Pant. Obvious I know, but having a beer in Pant or panting in Beer just wouldn’t be the same.

Sandy Balls

Sandy Balls, close to the River Avon and the New Forest in Hampshire, is comprised of woods and parklands which are now managed as a holiday centre. It was originally called Sandyballas, which referred to the sand dunes, and the name Sandyballas appears on documents from  Henry VII’s time. By 1939, the name Sandy Balls was in use for the promotion of the location as a holiday spot, with a possibly unintentional play on words.

Ugley and Nasty

Ugley is located in the Essex countryside and was registered in the Domesday Book as Ugghelea.  The theory is that someone called something like Ugga owned the original land which was a leah (Old English for a meadow or open field). Nothing to do with Ugley being ugly  – in fact it is said to be very pretty.  Ugley is not that far away from Nasty, in Hertfordshire. According to Wikipedia, the name Nasty is derived from Anglo-Saxon, æt þǽm éastan hæge, meaning “at the eastern hedged enclosure” or similar. And no, I don’t understand how the name evolved into Nasty, either.

Westward Ho!

The only place in the British Isles that includes an exclamation mark in its name, Westward Ho! can be found on the North Devon coast. Its attention grabbing name comes from the novel of the same name, by Charles Kingsley, published in 1855. His novel would not fare well in contemporary times due to its imperialist bias, but in its day, it was a bestseller. Ten years after publication,  some local businessmen from Bideford (where the storyline begins) set up a holiday village in close proximity, christening it  Westward Ho! and cashing in on the novel’s success and the Victorians’ love for seaside breaks.

And finally ….. all the Bottoms

Forgive my puerile sense of humour, but I just love all those place names that include the word bottom (which, incidentally is derived from Old English botm , meaning the lowest part of something). Too many to mention here but thank you to Bottom’s Fold in Lancashire, Broadbottom in Greater Manchester, Clay Bottom in Bristol, and the marvellously named Scratchy Bottom in Dorset, for making us laugh.

Feel free to tell me about any other place names that make you laugh – in England or anywhere else…..hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I have in creating it.