Has anyone out there in Fodorland ever seen a compilation of some of the rather eccentric place names in England and the rest of the U.K.?

Seems I saw such a list once, but cannot find it. If there is none, let's start one now.

For instance, I've always been rather facinated by the name "Sutton Hoo". A friend of mine swears she went through a town called Gigglesworth. What names have you found interesting or amusing while traveling in Old Blighty?

And Mousehole?

Oh, there's lots.

Douglas Adams's book "The Meaning of Liff" allocates fanciful meanings to various place names, ordinary and unusual.

Here's a piece from one of my favourite newspaper columnists:
"Like Douglas Adams, the late Paul Jennings had a game in which he gave British place-names their real definitions, as opposed to the drearier ones propounded by etymologists (why does everything turn out to mean "settlement", or occasionally "settlement by the oak trees"?). To Jennings, Leeds meant "a horse's nostrils". Erith was what a philanderer did, as in the old phrase, "man erith, woman morpeth". There was headstrong, as in "none of your bovey tracey ways here, miss!"

Jennings must have loved Dorset, where the true meaning of most village names leaps out at you, hardly requiring translation at all. Gussage St Michael, for instance, is clearly a pair of chain store knickers. When you have a hangover, you feel Duntish. Beer Hackett is an alcoholic scribbler who wrote the hard-hitting "'Swelp Me, Guv" column in the old News of the World. Catsgore was the place where the forbidden sport of cat-fighting was practised till Cromwell threatened to hang the organisers. Birdsmoorgate was a tremendous scandal involving a Bishop's Caudle and a shady doctor named Poxwell.

Many are colourful euphemisms. Up Sydling, for example: any lady of pleasure (or Plush) would know exactly what regular customers - such as Toller Porcorum, the libidinous rector, and the squire's son Haselby Pluckett (betrothed to the lovely but innocent Intrinseca) - had in mind, and were prepared to pay for handsomely. "

Or try Shellow Bowells and Pratts Bottom (in fact there are some VERY single entendre village names out there). Or of course the villages of Ugly and Loose, both of whom have branches of the Women's Institute, which can regularly cause unseemly sniggers from people who haven't heard the jokes before.

You can get to Tooting Bec on the Northern Line, and Chipping Ongar is near Bishop's Stortford.

Bill Bryson's book about his time in England (Notes from a Small Island) has a good compilation of the funnier names (don't remember exactly where, I think somewhere in the first half though).

The names belie the idyllic setting in Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter in the Cotswolds. When you hear the name, you wonder if some mass killings happened there in the past, but I have read that "Slaughter" means muddy place in Old English.

Keith

Some of the terms in "The Meaning of Liff" have become part of the regular vocabulary of family and friends. One will confess to feeling "duntish" after over-indulgence. The refrigerator regularly accumulates "goosenargh" (leftovers stored in the fridge despite the fact you know full well that you will never use it) and "high offley" (goosenargh 3 weeks later). What a wonderful and essential book.

KE1TH beat me to my favorites -- the Slaughters in the Cotswalds. And while it may not seem unique any more, who decided to name a city Liverpool?

I have always been fond of "Little Storping in the Fen".

Don't forget the charming little villages called Loose Chippings.
There are several dotted about the country.
In Cheshire there is a village called Peover Superior which sounds suitably subversive.

Pratt's Bottom!

We had to take a little detour on our recent trip to Scotland just so mr_go could say he'd been to Moss of Barmuckity (near Elgin).

Farleigh Wallop, Titsey, The Mumbles.

BTW Patrick - Liverpool is a corruption of its original Ancient Briton name when it was the village of Llethr-pwll (it is still called Lerpwl in Welsh, which is a further corruption).

The actual ficticiuos Liver Bird which adorns the top of the famous building is not pronounced as in the organ Liver, but rhymes with Diver (as in deep sea diver).

Therefore to answer your question of who decided to name the place Liverpool, well - it made sense to the ancient inhabitents because Lethrpwll describes the original geographical location. Pedantic or what?

Methinks that the ancient one is pulling our legs, Loose Chippings indeed.
What about all the Puddles and Piddles in Dorset, e.g. Piddletrenthide
Of course if you want beautiful romantic names, what about St Just in Roseland and St Anthony in Roseland.

Oldie, there was much amusement, when Ted Heath was the Prime Minister, when Private Eye published a picture of a road sign to Peover Heath. (It's pronounced Peever, by the way, aren't we dull).

Lisa is right - I knew there was something else I couldn't quite call to mind. I thought I had posted an extract from the Bill Bryson to a thread here, but can't find it. So here's what you were thinking of:
"You could sit me down with a limitless supply of blank paper and a pen and command me to come up with a more cherishably ridiculous name for a prison and in a lifetime I couldn't improve on Wormwood Scrubs or Strangeways.....

...There are villages without number whose very names summon forth an image of lazy summer afternoons and butterflies darting in meadows: Winterbourne Abbas, Weston Lullingfields, Theddlethorpe All Saints, Little Missenden. There are villages that seem to hide some ancient and possibly dark secret: Husbands Bosworth, Rime Intrinseca, Whiteladies Aston. There are villages that sound like toilet cleansers (Potto, Sanahole, Durno) and villages that sound like skin complaints (Scabcleuch, Whiterashes, Scurlage, Sockburn). In a brief trawl through any gazetteer you can find fertilizers (Hastigrow), shoe deodorizers (Powfoot), breath fresheners (Minto), dog food (Whelpo) and even a Scottish spot remover (Sootywells). You can find villages that have an atittude problem (Seething, Mockbeggar, Wrangle) and villages of strange phenomena (Meathop, Wigtwizzle, Blubberhouses). And there are villages without number that are just indearingly inane - Prittlewell, Little Rollright, Chew Magna, Titsey, Woodstock Slop, Lickey End, Stragglethrope, Yonder Bognie, Nether Wallop and the unbeatable Thornton-le-Beans......

...Kent has a fondness for foodstuffs: Ham, Sandwich, Rye. Dorset goes in for characters in a Barbara Cartland novel: Bradford Peverell, Compton Valence, Langton Herring, Wootton Fitzpaine. Lincolnshire likes you to think it's a little off its head: Thimbleby Langton, Tumby Woodside, Snarford, Fishtoft Drove, Sots Hole and the truly arresting Spitall in the Street.

It's notable how often these places cluster together. In one compact area south of Cambridge, for instance, you can find Blo Norton, Rickinghall Inferior, Helions Bumpstead, Ugley and (a personal favourite) Shellow Bowells."

Actually he misses one or two over the Essex border - Wendens Ambo, for example. There is a rationale to a lot of these names, though - they really do mean something and tell you something about the history of the place.

We will stay in Lower Oddington on our spring trip to the Cotswolds. Before driving there we will stay one night in Wells with a side trip to Wookey Hole.

Try this website, not pretty but amusing.
http://places.jump-around.com/browse/

Very unfair when there is a settlement in Texas called Uncertain and a Truth And Consquences in New Mexico not mention Intercourse!

I still stifle a snigger when I go near, or see signs for, Dorking (Surrey). Who knew it was a verb?

I've always tried to avoid passing through Shepherd's Bush. It sounds like someplace I don't want to be caught with my pants down. Ditto for Dorking.