[2] Nikolaus Pevsner describes the hamlet as "the best part" of Bere Regis, with its buildings forming "[their] own little street" leading up to the 18th-century thatched Shitterton Farm.

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.

[7] 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 faeces.

In 2012, Shitterton was voted "Britain's worst place-name" in a survey carried out by genealogy website Find My Past, beating Scratchy Bottom, also in Dorset, and Brokenwind in Aberdeenshire.

Ian Ventham, the chairman of the parish council, said: "It is a perfect rural hamlet with thatched cottages and idyllic Dorset countryside.

"[9] The hamlet's name has resulted in its sign repeatedly being stolen (a fate similar to that of Fugging (formerly Fucking), Upper Austria), requiring costly replacements to be acquired each time, to the increasing reluctance of the local council.

As Ian Ventham, chairman of Bere Regis Parish Council, put it: Every two or three years somebody comes along and nicks our sign because, clearly, Shitterton is amusing.