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Hell's Lum (Lion's Head) [land S entrance]

between Troup Head & Pennan, Aberdeenshire, (Banffshire).

Inland, large rocky shakehole in a deep ravine on a sloping hillside. Grassy platform inside the shakehole leads to a talus pile, on the far side of which is a boulder beach sloping steeply into a tall, narrow tunnel through the promontory to the sea entrance, which is a little to the W of Lion's Head.

It does not appear to be an active blowhole - see notes below, and interior photos posted in the sea entrance site record.

Alternative Names: Rumbling Hole, Rumblin Hole, Hellam, Hell's Lem

Notes: Accessible from the Cullykhan car park.

On 5 Apr 21, with Windy.com predicting 5m swell at 10s from NNW, and 1.5 hrs before a 3.0 m neeps high tide at 19:00, N Feilden visited to see if there was any blowhole action due to waves breaking on this beach. No such action was observed. The photos below show that the boulder beach is only wet about 2m above water level (rising tide) and that the cave tunnel appeared to be such that almost all the wave energy is dissipated well before it gets to the beach. There was remarkably little wind coming through from a NW gale and no foam flying.