Wings over the Hole of Horcum, North York Moors, North Yorkshire

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The picture was taken at the Hole of Horcum, a section of the valley of the Levisham Beck, upstream of Levisham and Lockton, in the Tabular Hills of the North York Moors National Park in northern England. The hollow is 400 ft deep and stretches approximately three-quarters-of-a-mile across. A "Devil's Punchbowl" type feature, local legend has it that the amphitheatre was formed when Wade the Giant scooped up a handful of earth to throw at his wife during an argument.

The Hole was actually created by a process called spring-sapping, where water welling up from the hillside gradually undermined the slopes above, eating the rocks away grain by grain. Over thousands of years, a once narrow valley widened and deepened into an enormous cauldron – and the process still continues today