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It's not just outside of Britain actually Ibs.
When i first moved to Yorkshire I thought Sowerby was pronounced 'sow-uh-be' but the locals all pronounce it saw-be. Likewise visitors to Bolton wuold see a place called Daubhill and assume it is pronounced Daub-hill. In fact the locals pronounce that as dobble.
Whenever you move to a new place in Britain you tend to find places like that. The only reason everyone knows the p[ronunciation of Leicester, or Worcester is because they are have some national prominence. Places that have no national prominence tend to be pronounced differently by visitors and locals. it's one of the ways you can generally tell if someone is new to an area :p
Our default position is to say it how it's spelt unless we know otherwise. probably because local dialect varies so much and though they're all starting to merge somewhat, those distinctions still survive strongly in placename and surname pronunications.
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