ASHTON Hayes residents were left baffled when their village sign was mysteriously changed to the name of a Hollywood star overnight.

Villagers weren’t sure what to think when they woke last week to see the Ashton Hayes village sign, the Golden Lion pub, the community shop, and even the cricket club had all been renamed ‘Ashton Kutcher’, in a bizarre homage to the 34-year-old star of hit TV comedy series Two and a Half Men.

Stunned residents were alerted to the news by leaflets and posters, declaring ‘Congratulations! Your village has now been re-named Ashton Kutcher’.

And it wasn’t just the people of Ashton Hayes who were left bemused – other UK villages including Ashton Under Hill in Worcestershire, Ashton in Northamptonshire and Ashton Keynes in Wiltshire, experienced similar confusion when their villages were also ‘taken over’ by the actor’s name.

The whole thing was a big hoax orchestrated by national satellite TV channel Comedy Central, who decided to play the prank in honour of the latest series of Two and a Half Men, which aired on the channel earlier this week.

The star attracted worldwide publicity last year when he took over on the show from Charlie Sheen.

The channel got the idea from Ashton Addiction, a self help group of fans completely obsessed by Kutcher – who recently filed for divorce from Indecent Proposal star Demi Moore – and are often known for arranging strange acts of homage.

A worker at Ashton Hayes Community Shop said most residents had been ‘intrigued’ at the events.

“It just came out of nowhere really, I was walking my son to school when I saw a lot of commotion around the sign,” she said.

“A lot of the older residents haven’t heard of Ashton Kutcher so were a bit confused but generally everyone thought it was quite funny.

“There’s nothing negative about it and it’s just a bit of harmless fun.”

Lydia Turner, a spokesperson for Comedy Central, said that AshtonHayes reacted ‘brilliantly’ to the joke.

“Ashton Hayes is a lovely little village and everyone seemed friendly and up for a laugh.

“We know the UK has lots of Ashton Kutcher fans so in order to pay homage to him we thought we should do something to put him on the UK map,” she added.

This quirky prank has put Ashton Hayes well and truly on the map, and has been a talking point across the world.

Ashton Kutcher himself showed his approval of the stunt tweeting “At least they’re carbon neutral”.

The new series of Two and a Half Men is due to air on Comedy Central on Mondays at 9pm.