Places features

It's helpful to think of place names as linguistic fossils. By tracing each name to its earliest spelling, you can find out what it really means.

The original spelling of some names can be confusing. For instance, Wool has nothing to do with sheep and Beer has no brewery. Spellings have changed over time. Wool comes from 'well' and Beer from 'baer'.

Most Dorset place names are of Old English or Anglo-Saxon origin. 

The oldest place names are of Celtic origin – river names like Cerne, Char, Lim, Trent and Wey.

Old Harry Rocks

The work of the devil!

It seems that Dorset residents have had an imaginative belief in the devil's activities here in the county.

For instance, Agglestone in Studland means in Old English 'Prince's Stone'.

According to folklore, this massive block of sandstone was said to have been thrown from the devil from the Isle of Wight in order to demolish Corfe Castle!

Dewlish, an old Celtic name, is believed to mean 'devilish'. It is named after the stream that runs through the village, which is now called Devil's Brook.

Old Harry's rocks in Studland were named more recently, in the 18th century. But that didn't stop locals giving the sea-stack the devil's nickname, Old Harry.

Pokesdown was thought to have been haunted by a puck or a goblin. And Grim's Ditch was named after a Germanic heathen god who residents believed was responsible for the area's earthworks.

'Wretched or miserable'!

Other places had less supernatural names. Unfortunately for those who live there now, Bleet Farm in Gillingham means, in Old English, 'wretched or miserable'.

More positively, Fortuneswell on Portland means 'lucky well or spring', or perhaps 'well or spring in which fortunes can be told'.

And Dorset wasn't a place to live if you were a criminal.

Three Legged Cross in Verwood was named after the gallows, which were often nicknamed the three legged mare.

Worgret, near Wareham, also means gallows which in Old English were called 'wearg-rod'.

Piddle Valley

The Piddle Valley is often cause for tittering, but Piddle in Old English just means 'marsh or fen'.

Piddletrenthide was described in the Domesday Book as an 'estate on the River Piddle assessed at thirty hides'. 'Trente' comes from French for thirty and 'hide' comes from Old English, meaning a hide of land.

Shitterton, too, is one of Dorset's rudest names.

It means 'farm at the stream used as a sewer' from the Old English 'scitere' and 'tun'. 

Locals prefer to call the village Sitterton – but there's no getting away from what its name really means.