From Scratchy Bottom to Wetwang: Britain’s Funniest Town Names (British Quirks 19/30)

Okay, imagine this: we’re curled up on the sofa with a big mug of tea (and probably a packet of biscuits we swore we wouldn’t finish), and I say—“you know what’s absolutely wild? British town names.”

Honestly, some of them sound like they were made up after a few too many pints, others are so charming you want to move there just for the postcode, and then there are those that make you go, hang on, how do you even pronounce that?

Take Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch in Wales. Yes, that’s real. Yes, I had to copy-paste it because my keyboard basically gave up. Locals just call it Llanfair PG, which is fair enough.

Then you’ve got gems like Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter in the Cotswolds. Sounds like somewhere you’d expect a grisly crime novel to be set, but no—picture-perfect cottages, honey-coloured stone, ducks waddling around. The only thing getting slaughtered is your willpower in the face of a cream tea.

Some towns are just… adorably British. Chipping Norton, Little Whinging (okay, that one’s Harry Potter, but it feelsreal, right?), or Much Wenlock—they all sound like characters in a BBC period drama.

Then there are the cheeky ones: Beer in Devon (a seaside town, not a brewery, sadly), Dull in Scotland (which is twinned with Boring in Oregon, USA—iconic), and of course, Scratchy Bottom in Dorset. Imagine having to write that on official paperwork.

But my absolute favourite thing? Even the “normal” sounding names—like Braintree or Newcastle-under-Lyme—have this quiet quirkiness that just feels so British. Like, you wouldn’t find a Bognor Regis in the middle of California, would you?

So next time you’re road-tripping around the UK, keep an eye on the signposts. Half the fun is saying, “wait, what?” out loud and giggling all the way through.

Want me to put together a little “Top 10 Funniest British Town Names” list, so you can drop them into conversation and sound like a trivia queen?