Shitterton in Dorset has a new village sign with the name cut into a one-and-a-half-tonne block of Purbeck stone so it will not get stolen.

The village has not had a sign for three years, since the last one was stolen. The village signs have consistently been stolen over the years because, as villager Ian Ventham says: “Clearly, ‘Shitterton’ is amusing.”

Every time the council puts up a new sign someone comes along and steals it, so when the latest one was stolen three years ago the council left the village without a sign.

Now the villagers have clubbed together to raise the £680 necessary to buy the Purbeck limestone sign and have it set in concrete.

Ian Ventham is 62 and has lived in the hamlet near Bere Regis for 20 years. He credited the idea for the stone sign to his wife and said: "I think we have made our contribution to David Cameron's 'Big Society' now."

Shitterton is recorded in Norman French in the Domesday Book as Scatera or Scetra, which translates to 'little town that is on the stream of a midden'. In other words, a sewer.