Trollers Gill is a

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms wh ...

gill A gill () is a respiratory organ that many aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they ar ...

gorge A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency to c ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by national parks, including most of the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors. It is one of four cou ...

, England, close to the village of

Skyreholme Skyreholme is a hamlet in Wharfedale in the Yorkshire Dales, North Yorkshire, England. It lies east of Appletreewick, in the small side valleys formed by Skyreholme Beck and Blands Beck, which meet in the hamlet to form Fir Beck, a short trib ...

and south east of

Grassington Grassington is a market town and civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England. The population of the parish at the 2011 Census was 1,126. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is situated in Wharfedale, ...

in the

Yorkshire Dales The Yorkshire Dales is an upland area of the Pennines in the historic county of Yorkshire, England, most of it in the Yorkshire Dales National Park created in 1954. The Dales comprise river valleys and the hills rising from the Vale of York ...

(). The gorge, which is in length, is also known as Trollerdale.

Name

The name Trollers is from ''troll'' and ''ears'' 'arse', so the gill means "the troll's arse", presumably after the supposed existence of

troll A troll is a being in Nordic folklore, including Norse mythology. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human be ...

s here. Arse is commonly used for a buttock-shaped hill. The present name was first recorded only in 1812. A survey conducted in the reign of

Edward II Edward II (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327), also called Edward of Caernarfon, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir apparent to ...

listed the gorge as ''Gordale in Appletreewick''. Speight suggests that this is of Danish influence from the word ''geir''; a triangular piece of land that ends in a chasm.

Description

Skyreholme Beck flows through the gorge, but for most of the year the streambed is dry with the water flowing underground. The beck is the continuation of Dry Gill, an intermittent stream which emerges from the Stump Cross Caverns system north-east of the head of Trollers Gill. There are several caves in the gorge. The largest is a

pothole A pothole is a depression in a road surface, usually asphalt pavement, where traffic has removed broken pieces of the pavement. It is usually the result of water in the underlying soil structure and traffic passing over the affected area. Wat ...

known as Hell Hole, which is 55 metres deep and has 210 metres of passages. The cave was first explored in 1896. The gill is also the location of an old

lead Lead is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metals, heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale of mineral hardness#Intermediate ...

and later

fluorspar Fluorite (also called fluorspar) is the mineral form of calcium fluoride, CaF2. It belongs to the halide minerals. It crystallizes in isometric cubic habit, although octahedral and more complex isometric forms are not uncommon. The Mohs scal ...

mine which was last worked in the 1960s.

Legends

Legend has it that the gill is the home of the mythical monstrous black dog

Barghest In Northern English folklore, the Barghest or Barguest is a mythical monstrous black dog with large teeth and claws, This in turn cites: *Wirt Sikes, ''British Goblins'' (1880) *''Notes and Queries'', first series, ii. 51. *Joseph Ritson, ''Fair ...

who can turn one to stone with a look. It has also been suggested by some that the Barghest story was a major influence on

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...

when he was penning ''

The Hound of the Baskervilles ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' is the third of the four crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in '' The Strand Magazine'' from August 1901 to April 1902, it is se ...

''. Local folklore declared that trolls lived in the gorge (hence its name) and would push stones down from the deep sides to people travelling up and down the gorge. '' Roger and the Rottentrolls'' is a fictional children's television program which takes the name of its setting from Trollers Gill; however, filming took place at

Brimham Rocks Brimham Rocks, once known as Brimham Crags, is a 183.9-hectare (454-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Geological Conservation Review (GCR) site, 8 miles (13 km) north-west of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, Engl ...

, a short distance away.

Gallery

File:Entrance to Trollers Gill from the south - geograph.org.uk - 413874.jpg, Entrance to Trollers Gill dry File:Trollers Gill (with surface drainage) - geograph.org.uk - 662066.jpg, Entrance to Trollers Gill in spate

References

External links

Visit Troller's Gill from Burnsall
{{coord, 54.05301, N, 1.89762, W, region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(SE068619), display=title Canyons and gorges of England Wharfedale