Exploring Troller’s Gill in the Yorkshire Dales
Just as our resistance to plan and organise has led us into precarious situations many times before, our slow ramble up to Troller’s Gill turned into a steep four hour hike through jagged limestone gorges and deep into the old lead and mineral mines of North Yorkshire. I sometimes wonder if we make these 'blunders' accidentally-on-purpose, to lose ourselves in new places and call it a great adventure.
Like many of our camping trips, this one started on a whim, over oats on Saturday morning. Having last camped on a sub-zero Friday evening in February, we were eager to venture outside in warmer weather. It seemed natural to head for a place high on both our ‘to-see’ lists: Troller’s Gill. Hidden in the Wharfedale valley between Appletreewick and Percevall Hall, at the edge of the Yorkhsire Dales. Troller’s Gill carves a deep ‘V’ between the village of Burnsall and the omnipotent peak of Simon’s Seat to the North East.
We left the city at midday, and entered the national park in a light drizzle. As we moved further and further away from Leeds and towards the hills, I watched the veneer of urban life peel away. Framed by the van window, the penchants of rural England arranged themselves before me; an abundance of country pubs, dressed at their thresholds with muddy walking boots, fronds of smoke curling from their chimneys and new lambs teetering on inexperienced limbs under the watchful eyes of ewes.
It took us a while to park as it always seems to, the Dales being mostly hills and our handbrake not very reliable. We then set to pondering our route, scanning backwards and forwards between our maps and the wooden signposts signalling a host of walking trails and towpaths, our waterproofs rustling with each confused turn of the head. We didn’t know it then, but our concentrated efforts would be of little use - possessing unfortunate navigational prowess, we lost our way soon after leaving Burnsall. Turning left from the local inn, we meandered through farmland dotted with new lambs and agricultural apparatus, leaning up the muddy banks every so often to allow passage of huge, spluttering tractors with hot, sour smelling tyres.
A couple of hundred yards on, the road forked and we took the steep rocky staircase up the hillside, hoping to find a cut through for the path to the ravine we’d travelled to see. Instead, we emerged at the heart of Perceval Hall’s grounds, a renowned historical gardens spanning 24 acres, and privy to spectacularly elevated views of the ravine and Troller’s Gill below, albeit on the wrong side of a barbed wire fence. In the summertime, many specimens of plant and flower bloom here, and visitors can pay to enjoy them. Luckily for us, the gardens are deserted in the low season, and we were able to haunt the wide terraces free of charge – a fortune I always make sure to enjoy with much gusto, whenever I can.
In stark contrast to the calm of the gardens, negotiating the wire cattle fence and making our way down the steep, crumbling hillside towards the opening of Troller’s Gill proved more dramatic. Poised like mountain goats, we made our way carefully down under the weary observation of some grazing sheep, digging our heels into the limestone deposits and recalling to one another the myths of trolls and mythical monsters said to have originated from these gullies.
Local legend tells of hostile, rock throwing troll’s along the route, and scarier still, a bloodthirsty black dog, able to turn unsuspecting walkers to stone with one demonic glance, and likely the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. Looking to the entrance of the gorge, I paused to appreciate Nathan’s reassuring company in a place so isolated and steeped in dark folklore. I snapped a few pictures of sheep, my hands numbing in the cold and covered the last of the boggy ground between the gardens and the gill in a few bounding steps.
The gorge itself has two states: in fair weather you can pass through the wide opening at the fold of the valley and hike its length on a ‘path’ yet unrecognized by our OS map. After heavy rainfall, Skyreholme Beck flows from its entrance, rendering the gorge impassable, even by the standards of two reckless van campers. We enjoyed a steady compromise, trudging upwards through a light flow of water.
We navigated the slim break with difficulty, easing through the cleft by means of one carful step after another, and a hopeful smear of the hiking boot to test the danger of slipping on the green limestone boulders. Looking upwards, the ravine felt at once claustrophobically confined and wildly cavernous. Our echoed ‘woah’s rattled from the crooks where perhaps the trolls dwelled, ready to throw rocks at us from the vantage point of large, caved ledges. A little further in, we passed two soggy sport climbers, one hanging from a rope, shoulders hunched, appealing to his belay for ideas and the other gesturing vaguely up the length of rope. We passed quietly, feeling guilty to have intruded on their limestone sanctuary and continued our winding scramble.
Mindful of the fading daylight overhead and nervous of being late for our friends, who we’d arranged to meet on the Bolton Abbey estate some 8 miles away, we made the decision to cut from the main gully and began a steep climb up one side of the ravine, pulling at the damp rocks and heaving our legs up behind us. Under a fading grey sky, we crawled, at times using our hands to grasp thick handfuls of moss and weed. Nathan climbed ahead, musing aloud on the recklessness, and simultaneous ‘adventurousness’ of our current activity. Nervous glances exchanged, we both set our eyes on the middle distance, turning our attention away from the height we’d reached, and the treacherous drop now below us.
We ‘summited’ a few long minutes later, panting, peeling our thermals from our damp skin and rejoiced in having lived to see another day. Giddy with accomplishment, we stood looking over the drop and out towards the valley below. It’s kind of Eerie isn’t is? Nathan said as I poked at a small pile of bones by my feet, a rodent perhaps. At least, something with huge front teeth and a small, alabaster ribcage, now half buried in the dirt. It is, eerie. A hundred of so yards ahead, the entrance to the mine sits abandoned and rusting on the hillside. We pondered what it might have been like to walk through those hills to work each day, to mine lead in the Dales and set off down the hill to join the path back towards Burnsall, to meet our friends and find a place to camp for the night.
