No one really knows for sure how the village received its intriguing name. One theory derives it from miserere me, a phrase chanted by pilgrims who walked this way. Another suggests the deceased St Cuthbert somehow whispered pity me, when monks dropped his coffin at the site. Others say it was a pilgrim's inn, or the protests of a prisoner taken to a gallows that perhaps stood on the site. Even 'Pitty' a reference to abundant coal pits has been suggested.