Britain's Most Unusual Place Names (And the Cottages Right Next Door)

Britain is full of places with names that make you look twice. We mapped 211 of the funniest, oddest and rudest, then checked how many you can actually take a holiday in. The answer: almost all of them.

Explore the interactive map →

ShittertonGreat CockupBrown WillyWetwangTwattScratchy BottomBell EndNastyUgleyPity MeWestward Ho!Mousehole

Open the full interactive map · jump to the searchable list of all 211

It started with a road sign. Once you notice one daft place name, you start seeing them everywhere, and Britain has more than its fair share. So we did the sensible thing and turned it into a project. We pulled together 211 of the country's most unusual place names across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, checked every single one against the record so we were not repeating a myth, and then asked the question nobody else seems to ask: could you actually stay there?

Turns out you nearly always can.

The headline findings

• We verified 211 unusual UK place names across 12 types, from the rude to the gloomy to the unpronounceable.
• You can book a holiday cottage within 10 miles of 206 of them (98%). The odd name is the excuse; the holiday is real.
• Dorset is Britain's rude-name capital, with five rudely named spots, though we should be honest that three of them share the same River Piddle root.
• The most "stayable" cheeky name is Great Cockup in Cumbria, with 1,232 cottages within 10 miles. The least is Twatt in Shetland, with just one.

The cheeky ones (yes, they are all real)

Let us deal with the obvious first. Cockermouth in Cumbria is not rude at all, it simply sits at the mouth of the River Cocker, but the name raises a smile and the place is glorious. It was William Wordsworth's birthplace, and there are 795 cottages within 10 miles of Cockermouth. A few fields away, the Lake District fell called Great Cockup has an even bigger pull, with 1,232 cottages within reach.

Dorset is where the rude map really lights up. As well as the famously named Shitterton near Bere Regis, the county has a whole valley of Piddles. You can stay right in Piddlehinton, or up the lane in Piddletrenthide, both within easy reach of around 350 to 390 cottages. Over in East Yorkshire, the village of Wetwang (once home to honorary mayor Richard Whiteley) has 137 cottages on its doorstep.

The gloomy ones

Some places sound like they have given up. County Durham gives us both Pity Me and No Place, two villages a few miles apart that read like a mood rather than a map. No Place is real enough that you can base a Beamish museum trip there, with 217 cottages within 10 miles. Hertfordshire offers Nasty, Essex has Ugley (home, genuinely, to the Ugley Women's Institute), and Wales chips in with Sodom in Denbighshire. None of them are as grim as they sound.

Hungry? There is a place name for that

Devon is a buffet. Guzzle Down sits near Paignton with a remarkable 1,435 cottages within 10 miles, the highest count of any name on our list. The same county serves up Beer, a proper fishing village where 830 cottages are within striking distance of a pint. Kent brings Sandwich, which gave the snack its name and keeps 222 cottages close by.

Britain's only exclamation mark

Punctuation is rare on a map, which makes Westward Ho! in Devon one of a kind: it is the only place name in Britain with an exclamation mark built in. It was named after Charles Kingsley's 1855 adventure novel, making it the only English village named after a book, and it now sits beside 930 cottages. Cornwall answers with Indian Queens, a village whose origin nobody fully agrees on, ringed by 1,337 cottages. And for a hill that needs no explanation, Bodmin Moor's Brown Willy is the highest point in Cornwall, with around 780 cottages within reach.

The long, the short and the unsayable

The longest genuine place name in the UK is the full Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch on Anglesey, 58 characters that were stitched together by a local in the 1860s to pull in Victorian tourists. The trick worked, and it still does: there are 1,046 cottages within 10 miles. Most locals just say Llanfairpwll.

At the other end, the shortest village name in the UK is Ae in Dumfries and Galloway, two letters, tied with Bu in Orkney. If you allow single-letter names of rivers and islands, the Gaelic name for Iona is simply Ì. Ae keeps 81 cottages within range. And for sheer spelling mischief, Norfolk's Happisburgh (say "Hayze-bruh") sits near 589 cottages, while Cornwall's Mousehole (say "Mowzel") has more than 1,000.

A mini world tour without the airport

You do not need a passport to visit Egypt (West Yorkshire), Nasareth (Gwynedd), California (Falkirk) or Moscow (Ayrshire). Britain quietly borrowed dozens of famous names, and most come with cottages attached. Egypt alone has 357 within 10 miles.

How we did it

We compiled 211 unusual place names from public gazetteers, Ordnance Survey records and Wikipedia, then fact-checked each one to confirm it is a genuine place and to correct its county. We removed names we could not verify. For every name with a known location, we counted the self-catering cottages listed on selfcatering.co.uk within a 10 mile radius, and found the nearest place you can book. The "rude-name capital" figure is a count within our 211-name list rather than a full census, and clustered names like the three Piddles share one origin. All cottage counts are based on our listings and are correct as of June 2026.

Find your own unusual stay

Half the fun is the photo by the sign. The other half is the cottage with the wood burner two miles down the road. Explore the Lake District, Cornwall, Dorset or Wales, or open the interactive map, or jump to the searchable list of all 211 below.

FAQ

What is the rudest place name in the UK?

Shitterton in Dorset is regularly voted Britain's rudest, having topped a 2012 survey of worst place names. It is a genuine hamlet near Bere Regis, recorded in the Domesday Book, and there are 354 cottages within 10 miles of it.

What is the longest place name in the UK?

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch on Anglesey, at 58 characters. It was coined in the 1860s as a tourism stunt. The everyday name is Llanfairpwll.

What is the shortest place name in the UK?

The shortest village name is Ae in Dumfries and Galloway, just two letters, tied with Bu in Orkney. Single-letter names exist for some rivers and islands, such as Ì, the Gaelic name for Iona.

Can you actually stay in these places?

Almost always. You can book a self-catering cottage within 10 miles of 206 of the 211 unusual places we mapped, which is 98%.

Which county has the most rude place names?

Dorset, with five in our list, including Shitterton, Scratchy Bottom and three villages in the Piddle valley. It is a count within our sample rather than an official census.

Research and map by selfcatering.co.uk. Free to use with a link back. Cottage counts based on our listings, correct as of June 2026.

Research and map by selfcatering.co.uk. Counts are based on our listings and correct as of June 2026. Free to use and embed with a link back.

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