Trollers Gill is a

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

gill A gill () is a respiration organ, respiratory organ that many aquatic ecosystem, 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 r ...

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

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...

, 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 tri ...

and south-east of

Grassington Grassington is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. The population of the parish at the 2011 Census was 1,126. The village is situated in Wharfedale, about north-west from Bolton Abbey, and is surrou ...

in the

Yorkshire Dales The Yorkshire Dales are a series of valleys, or Dale (landform), dales, in the Pennines, an Highland, upland range in England. They are mostly located in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, but extend into C ...

(). 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 bei ...

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 known as Edward of Caernarfon or Caernarvon, was King of England from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir to the throne follo ...

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 Stump Cross Caverns is a limestone cave system between Wharfedale and Nidderdale in North Yorkshire, England. First discovered around 1860 by the Newbold brothers and further explored in the 1920s, the caverns are now open to the public as a com ...

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 pot-shaped 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 affecte ...

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; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

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, ''Fa ...

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 Detective fiction, crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serial (literature), serialised in ''The Strand Magazine'' from ...

''. 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, Engla ...

, 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 Appletreewick