Scratchy Bottom (or Scratchy's Bottom) is a clifftop valley between Durdle Door and

Bat's Head Bat's Head is a chalk headland on the Dorset coast in southern England, located between Swyre Head and Durdle Door to the east, and Chaldon Hill and White Nothe White Nothe (meaning "White Nose") is a chalk headland on the English Channel c ...

in Dorset, England. A dry valley in the chalk, it is surrounded by farmland at its sides and landward end, with cliffs at the seaward end. The name is thought to refer to a rough hollow. Scratchy Bottom has been noted for its

unusual place name Unusual place names are names for cities, towns, and other regions which are considered non-ordinary in some manner. This can include place names which are also offensive words, inadvertently humorous or highly charged words, as well as place ...

. The location came second after

Shitterton Shitterton is a hamlet in Dorset, England. It has attracted worldwide attention for its name, which dates back at least 1000 years and means "farmstead on the stream used as an open sewer". Shitterton has frequently been noted on lists of unusu ...

, also in Dorset, in a 2012 poll for "Britain's worst place name" carried out by the genealogy website '' Find My Past''. Scratchy Bottom was the location for the opening of the 1967 film ''

Far from the Madding Crowd ''Far from the Madding Crowd'' (1874) is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel and his first major literary success. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in ''Cornhill Magazine'', where it gained a wide readership. The novel is set in ...

'', in a scene in which Gabriel Oak's sheep are driven over a cliff by his sheepdog.

References

External links

Durdle Door, Dorset
Valleys of Dorset Jurassic Coast {{Dorset-geo-stub