YOU can search for a house in Argleton, find out what the local weather is like, and even plan your route to it on the internet.
But the one thing you can’t do is visit it. Because, despite appearing on popular search engine Google’s map tool, it doesn’t actually exist.
Search for “Argleton” and you’ll find it listed a stone’s throw from the A59 south of Ormskirk, West Lancashire, near to Town Green train station, but how it came to be there is still a matter of mystery. Some think it may be a misspelling of Aughton, though that village also appears alongside the phantom Argleton. Others have suggested it could be a trap to catch out people pilfering copyrighted maps.
Roy Bayfield, head of corporate marketing at Edge Hill University, decided to visit “Argleton” to see what it looked like, after a colleague found it on the internet. He said: “The interest has surprised me. I just spent an afternoon walking around taking pictures and messing around on a blog that I thought would interest three or four of my friends.
“But now it’s been twittered all over the world and people in different languages are coming up with all sorts of reasons why Argleton is there.” A Google spokesperson said: “Google Maps data comes from third party data sources. While the vast majority of this information is correct, there are occasional errors.
Who cares…as long as it has a liquor store.
