WETWANG - and other ridiculous places names

[PastaAllaNorma]

We're driving to the Yorkshire coast and will shortly pass through th village of Wetwang. Since the children were tiny we all yell Wetwang!!! in the car as we spot the sign. They are adults now but I still do it even on my own.

Penistone was declared imaginary by a visiting American friend, so if we pass that way we always say "You cannot be serious" just the way she did.

Anyone else have daft family ritual/habits on a road trip?

I always chuckle at Cockermouth in Cumbria

We frequently drive past the village of Walsoken in Norfolk, which we are convinced should be a Scandinavian expression meaning 'extremely drunk'.

Somebody will always put on a highly dodgy Nordic accent and say "No, Sven, you must not drive today - you are Walsoken!"

Cockburn.

It amuses me no end that the locals pronounce it “Co-bun”. Just embrace it!

I'm English and DH is Scottish. Whenever we cross the border the person returning to the country of their birth cheers and l the person leaving their country makes rude gestures. DS gets to choose.

Sherbern in Elmet always makes me sing 'Oh to be 'In Elmet' in the summertime'. I wonder what it means to be 'In Elmet' too....😂

Tooting about at the weekend we passed a roadsign for Wallish Walls. Cue lots of comments from DH about driving along the "roady road" to get there etc

There's a very posh village on the edge of Birmingham where they have two roads called Twatling Road (officially pronounced to rhyme with 'bottling') and Mearse Lane (pronounced 'merse', but we always instinctively read it as Jim Royle would, and I'm sure we're not alone!). The houses on those roads cost a fortune, yet imagine having to give that out as your address every time! It's the road equivalent of Hyacinth spelling out 'Bouquet'!

Also not too far away from them is the village of Bell End.

Ding Dong - lots of people stop to take a pic

My Londoner husband lives in Yorkshire now and was highly amused by Fanny Hands Lane.

We have a Pratts Bottom near us! Have also driven past Lower and Upper Dicker.

If you look at rivers, their names are often just the local word meaning 'river'. I suppose it makes sense, thinking way back in history, where many people never travelled much outside of their own area - so as far as it concerned them and their lives, it was just 'THE river'.

Slag Lane is in a nice village in Greater Manchester!

There are several roads around the country called St Peter's Close. I can never see one without commenting that it would be an ideal location for an old folks' home

There is also a Nob End near Bolton

Was that not just named proudly by the Romans after the main road that they built through it - and it was originally No Bend?

This sign for a quiet village outside Nottingham has been stolen by Batman fans before! It's actually pronounced 'goat-um'!

😂@AWeeCupOfTeaAndAnIndividualFruitTrifle Crying here! Love your sense of humour, Walsoken too😂

Rituals - we always used to do the car colour counting game and, for some reason I can no longer remember, if we ever saw the relevant Land Rover would shout out 'DEFENDER! NO RETURNS!'

Place names - loads round here that are weird. Live fairly close to the old country signs that tell you how far you are from Ham and Sandwich. Squeeze Gut Alley - which is odd as it isn't even the narrowest. There's a few Buttshole and Bogshole lanes etc. But the one I really dislike is Lynsore Bottom. Poor Lyn.

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There’s a very famous Iron Age archaeological site near Wetwang. It’s called Wetwang Slack.

Used to live in Lincolnshire and often went through Gotham. We all said "To the Batmobile" at that sign.....😁

Not all scatological, but I live near places called Tiddleywink, Cockadilly, Jackament’s Bottom and Ready Token. Somerset a has a lot of good ones, too, but my fave is the splendiferous Nempnett Thrubwell.

Discovered this gem when I was house hunting and happily didn’t care for the house because I’m not sure I’d be brave enough to live on this road.

I love Nempnett Thrubwell. My lovely dad reckoned it sounded like an American Private Investigator and would make up stories... "Thrubwell drained the last of his bourbon and picked up his pistol. Huish Episcopi was back in town, and she was a dame it would be unwise to confront unarmed" etc

Also I believe there is a burial mound there locally known as Fairy Toot which is unspeakably brilliant.

Surrounded by Bottoms growing up on Somerset, but my favourite is in the wilds of South Wales: Bully Hole Bottom.

Edited because I forgot: there is also a Wurzels song about Nempnett Thrubwell.

FIL was from Gotham and used to get very aerated about the Goth-um mispronunciation.

It's Washing Irving's fault, he wrote about the crazies of Gotham and said "we're all in Gotham now" or something in his articles.