Monday 25 February 2013

I love Britain and its amazing place names...

I love British place names.  When I was moving to the UK my image of the country, gathered from Location Location Location episodes, Harry Potter and Coronation Street, was a muddled mix of quaint, traditional, and quirky.  It's certainly lived up to its expectations.

One of the most quaint and quirky things about the country are the multitude of hilariously adorable/strange place names.  My husband and I have a game where we try to make up funny sounding village names like 'Twickleford-on-the-Wold' or 'Picklington Lacey'.  Yeah I know, we're mature and interesting people.  I'm guessing some of the ones we come up with might really exist though.  Here are some of the stranger ones I've found having a quick look on Google Maps:


  • Appleby-in-Westmorland
  • Newton Poppleford
  • Winterborne Stickland
  • Puddletown
  • Beer
  • Mousehole
  • Booby's Bay
  • Crapstone
  • Stoney Littleton
  • Honeycombe Leaze
  • Coldcomfort
  • Horsington


Strange but cute.  That's what the UK is to me :)  Please post in the comments if you know any particularly charming place names!  Maybe I'll come back with a list of strange Canadian place names...

3 comments:

  1. How about where I live (and it is also my business name): Christmas Pie

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  2. That one definitely belongs on the list! I thought for some reason that it was your street name, but village name is even better :)

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    1. It is both the road name and the village name. We discovered the reason for the name shortly after we moved in - our village hall held an event about the area. Pie is a particular sized parcel of land and Christmas was the name of the family who owned the land the village stands on.

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