Welcome to the hilariously-named villages locals insist are lovelier than they sound

The towns and idyllic hamlets of rural Britain have gone head to head in a new survey - to find the UK's most unfortunate place name.

There were many contenders, but the tiny collection of homes known as Shitterton on the edge of the village of Bere Regis , has come out on top.

The tiny settlement between Dorchester and Poole beat the nearby valley of Scratchy Bottom, near Durdle Door in Dorset and Brokenwind in Aberdeenshire in the survey by www.findmypast.co.uk.

Britain's worst place name: Shitterton in Dorset has been voted the UK's most embarrassing place name

Fighting for the top spot: Shitterton even beat off competition from Crapstone in Devon

Picturesque: Sandy Balls, situated in the New Forest, was named after the dome-shaped gravel and known as Sandyballas during the reign of Henry VII

Shitterton is a very literal English translation of the village name recorded in Norman French in the 11th century Domesday Book as Scatera or Scetra which means a little town that is on the stream of a midden or sewer.



But Ian Ventham, chairman of Bere Regis Parish Council and proud Shitterton resident, said he does not find the name of the hamlet, with its long history, embarrassing.

The retired RNLI director added: ' It is a perfect rural hamlet with thatched cottages and idyllic Dorset countryside.



'Those of us who live here are not the least bit embarrassed by it.'

Shitterton came above the nearby valley of Scratchy Bottom, named after the rugged and rough hollow, which was used as a location for the 1967 film

Rude place names: Slag Lane in Haydock , Merseyside, was also on the list. The name simply refers to the slag heaps that were formerly a characteristic of the area

A small village in Kent called Pratts Bottom - Pratt coming from the Latin word Pratum meaning Meadow- was also in list

Shitterton hit the headlines in 2010 when residents got so fed up with pranksters stealing the standard road signs displaying the name that they clubbed together and bought a £680 one-and-a-half-tonne Purbeck stone version set in concrete.



According to the website, the valley of Scratchy Bottom is thought to take its name from the fact that it is a rough and rugged hollow.



Brokenwind was known as 'Broken Wynd' in the 19th century, with wynd, the website said, a Scots word for a narrow path that snakes or winds between two larger roads.

Ancient names: The name of the Gloucestershire village of Old Sodbury comes from corrupted Old English that would have meant ' The fortified village of Soppa' referring to a Roman fort

Back Passage in the city of London, close to Smithfield market and the Barbican, derives its name from the fact that it is a passageway running around the back row of a number of buildings allowing access to their rear entrances

All in the saying: Ugley, in Essex, is commonly pronounced as 'Usley '

Crapstone, a picturesque village on the western edge of Dartmoor in Devon, came fourth in the survey of 1,773 people, ahead of Golden Balls in Oxfordshire, Ugley in Essex, Crackpot in North Yorkshire, Backside in Aberdeenshire, Great Snoring in Norfolk and Happy Bottom in Dorset.



'If there were an Olympics for unlikely place names, Britain would surely be good for a medal, if not the gold', said Debra Chatfield, a family historian at findmypast.co.uk.



'In the course of researching their family history, people can discover that their ancestors came from somewhere with an unlikely, unfortunate or downright embarrassing name.



'Some people are unsettled to discover that their forebears came from somewhere called, say, Crackpot, Ugley or Happy Bottom.'

The town of North Piddle, in rural Worcestershire, got its name from the old English word piddle referring to a marsh or fen, which, overtime lent its name to the nearby stream Piddle Brook