This Side of the Pond

Were half the villages of my home county given new names to save the sensibilities of a queen? This is not a question I expected to ever ask myself, and it’s all the fault of a goose.

I keep up with the latest goings on in Dorset through our local newspaper, you see, and last week my attention was caught by a big and important news story. A goose was reported to have been causing a potential hazard to motorists on the A35 near the Puddletown turn-off.

According to the Dorset Echo, this emergency was reported at 8:12 a.m. on October 6, causing police to respond to the scene. Officers who attended were able to confirm at 8:36 a.m. that the goose was no longer on the road.

Officers then left the scene.

That’s quite the rollercoaster of adventure, right there. This was clearly an impactful incident and had nothing to do with a slow news day.

Oh, Dorset Echo, worry not – we’ve all been there.

It’s worth pointing out, though, that this seems to have been a Canada goose. Those winged menaces are just as mean no matter which side of the ocean they’re currently terrorizing.

I’m not convinced that 24 minutes of potential goose was worthy of a front page news story, but it did give me a giggle. When I told a friend, however, she was more interested in the goose’s location than its potentially threatening behavior.

I’m the first to admit that Puddletown is a place name that’s at the very least quaint, and could even be described as silly. Such is the way of things in Britain, where many of our notable locations were given their monikers before the English language as we know it was really a thing.

It is named for the River Piddle, which runs through it towards the coast at Bournemouth. Yes, you read that right, we do indeed have a flowing body of liquid that we named the Piddle.

It’s smaller and more tranquil than your average river, and many locals will tell you that its name is also the origin of the slang word for “pee”. This is a long-standing rumor with little evidence available to disprove it, but we do know that “piddle” itself came from the Old English word “pidele,” meaning “spring”, or water coming up from the ground.

Piddletown, as it was originally known, therefore means “farmstead by the spring,” which I think we can all agree is much prettier in its translated form.

It’s a river with more historical prestige than its title implies. Alongside is the church where Thomas Hardy was inspired to create Tess of the d’Urbevilles, one of his more famous characters, and Far from the Madding Crowd was set not much further down the banks.

Close to Puddletown you’ll find 30 round barrows, evidence that the area has been occupied since prehistoric times, and the remains of a Roman Road travel nearby. Little Piddle is a medieval settlement that’s now deserted, but is known to have been around since at least the Domesday Book (the “Great Survey” of England and Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror.)

Cardinal Pole, the last Archbishop of Canterbury from the Catholic faith, was vicar of Puddletown in 1532, while T.E. Lawrence lived in Clouds Hill cottage nearby.

The River Piddle rises next to the church in Alton Pancras, which was originally named Awultune in Saxon, meaning the village at the source of a river (we are nothing if not literal.) It’s even an important habitat for salmon.

The Piddle has also lent its name to a variety of towns and villages, from Tolpuddle and Turnerspuddle to Briantspuddle and Affpuddle and, of course, my own personal favorite, Piddletrenthide. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

You might notice, in all but one of these examples, that the name uses the more innocent alternative of “puddle”. Was this a lack of consistency on the part of our ancestors, or is something else going on?

Apparently, Puddletown was still known locally as Piddletown right into the 1950s, so why did things change and when did it happen? Legend has it that a queen is to blame, but not the one who currently sits on the throne.

As a young girl, probably in the 1820s or 30s, the future Queen Victoria visited the area, causing the locals to undergo a communal panic attack. Surely a member of the royal family would be offended by such a rude name?

We’ll never know if that was true, because legend holds that the locals immediately began referring to their towns using “puddle” instead of the original “piddle”. Personally, I think she’d have been unmoved – after all, it’s not like Britain isn’t peppered with ridiculous place names.

From Crapstone in Devon to Crotch Crescent in Oxford, Booty Lane in North Yorkshire to Nether Wallop in Hampshire, we’ve got a Droop, a Throop, a Mamble and a Plumpton to boot. Essex boasts a Matching Tye (full of residents with excellent wardrobe skills), while Devon on the west coast quite literally has a town called “Westward Ho!”

I’ve spoken before about the American inclination to borrow place names from the homelands you came from – it’s how we got Newcastle, for example, and probably Upton. What I can’t understand is why gems like Bishop’s Ichington and Queen Camel didn’t make the shortlist.

Not to mention Piddletrenthide, which I have long held to be the greatest piece of daft naming on human record. What exactly put you off the idea of borrowing it – were you concerned you’d end up attacked by a rogue goose or something?