THE country's most confusing village is causing havoc for visitors - because its name can be spelled at least 26 different ways.

Baffled drivers, tourists and delivery men are left spell-bound as they try to find the country vilage of Trellech in Monmouthshire.

Or should that be Trylec, Tryleg, Trylleck, Trelec, Trelech, Treleeck, Trelegg, Trelleg, Trellegg, Trellick, Trilec, Trileec, Trilegh, Trillec, Trilleck, Trillegh, Trillek, Trelleck, Tryled, Trilet, Treleck, Tryleghor, Trylec Bechan, Trilecc or Trillet.

Maps, books and search engines offer a range of historic spellings of the village, population 2,500, over the last thousand years.

Even now it has five common spellings currently in use on road signs and shops dotted around the rural centre.

The picturesque village is set in rolling hills and green fields only 25 miles from the city of Newport- but is a nightmare to navigate because of its name confusion.

Roadsigns on the way in call it Trellech, Trelech, Trelleck, Treleck and Tryleg with barns and old maps spelling it Treleck and Trylegh.

Villager Stephanie Poulter, 72, said: "Sat-navs, Google Maps and Royal Mail all use the unofficial spelling of Trelleck. No wonder people get lost."

Horse breeder Mrs Poulter said: "It really is very confusing to an outsider.

"The Met Office uses the unofficial Trelleck, as does the Royal Mail.

"We sign off our letters with whatever spelling we want. It's fun."

Her husband Alan Poulter, 73, said: "A tea-towel on sale around the village proffers 22 options, including Treleeck and Trillet.

"A local book, Trellech 2000, published to celebrate the millennium, suggests 23.

"The Trellech United Community Council website raises this to 26. There may even be over 30 - who knows?"

Trellech is believed to be the only village in the UK that has four spellings still in use.

Prof Hywel Wyn Owen, a former director of the Place-Name Research Centre, said: "Although it was quite common for places to have many historical spellings, Trellech stands out because of the way the locals have preserved these variants and kept them going.

"It is very unusual to have four spellings still in use in 2018. In fact, I don't know any other place like it."

"Strangely, sat-navs and other maps are often slow to change to official spellings, but often stick with the most popular, helping to fossilise old forms."

Experts say the village developed its confusing spellings as the name was historically spread by word of mouth.

Dylan Foster Evans, head of Cardiff University's School of Welsh, said: "Between the 13th and 17th centuries, there was simply no need to write words down in a consistent manner or formalise one correct spelling.

"Even common English words could have hundreds of different spellings, so leg might have been written legg or legge. There was no impetus to agree."

"Undoubtedly, there is confusion.

"Even the current English spelling (Trellech) seems in fact very Welsh, until you realise the double 'l' and the 'ch' are not pronounced the Welsh way.

"It is not so much the number of spellings that makes Trellech interesting, but the history and interplay of languages behind them.

"It's a little window on to how people thought of the village and I'm sure locals are proud of the variety."

Dr Simon Horobin, professor of English language at Oxford University, said: "I suspect that the reason that Trellech has clung on to the variants for so long is that it is a small place with less need for a fixed official form.

"The different spellings might also have become important to its identity.

"Perhaps the residents take pride in this idiosyncrasy and so deliberately preserve it, resisting the pressure to adopt a single standard form."

Trellech was a huge industrial city in the 13th century but its 400 homes were burned to the ground.

The ancient city was believed to be a myth until it was uncovered by amateur archaeologist Stuart Wilson, 38, who bought a field and dug for it himself.