Shitterton
| Shitterton | |
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 Shitterton sign, carved from Purbeck stone |
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 Shitterton
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| Shitterton shown within Dorset | |
| OS grid reference | SY840950 |
| Civil parish |
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| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | WAREHAM |
| Postcode district | BH20 |
| Dialling code | 01929 |
| Police | Dorset |
| Fire | Dorset and Wiltshire |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| EU Parliament | South West England |
| UK Parliament | |
Shitterton is a hamlet in Dorset, England. It has attracted worldwide attention for its name, which dates back at least a thousand years and means "farmstead on the stream used as an open sewer". It has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names. The hamlet includes a fine collection of historic thatched buildings dating back to the 18th century and earlier.
Shitterton is located at the western edge of the village of Bere Regis in the Purbeck district of Dorset, England, near the junction of the A31 and A35 trunk roads halfway between Poole and Dorchester. The hamlet has about 50 households. Because it was protected by the Bere River from the fires that have ravaged Bere Regis over the years (most notably in 1788), Shitterton still retains an extensive selection of older, predominantly thatched, buildings.Nikolaus Pevsner describes the hamlet as "the best part" of Bere Regis, with its buildings forming "its own little street" leading up to the 18th-century thatched Shitterton Farm.
The unusual name of the hamlet dates back at least 1,000 years to Anglo-Saxon times. It was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Scatera or Scetra, a Norman French rendering of an Old English name derived from the word scite, meaning dung. This word became schitte in Middle English and shit in modern English. The name alludes to the stream that bisects the hamlet, which appears to have been called the Shiter or Shitter, or "brook used as a privy". The place-name therefore means something along the lines of "farmstead on the stream used as an open sewer". It has been recorded in a number of variants over the centuries, including Schitereston (1285), Shyterton (1332), Chiterton (1456) and Shetterton (1687). During the 19th century, prudish Victorians attempted to rename the hamlet as Sitterton. The name did not stick, though it lingers on in a few house and road names such as Sitterton Close and Sitterton House. It is not the only place-name in Britain that starts with Shit- – Shittlehope and Shitlington Crags also exist, located in County Durham and Northumberland respectively – but it appears to be the only one to actually be named after excrement.
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Wikipedia