MILLIONS of years ago, even before dinosaurs roamed the earth, the foundations were being laid for a spectacular landscape which still holds a fascination for the modern world.

People travel for miles to marvel at the weird shapes of Brimham Rocks, on the Nidderdale Moors, near Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

Lumps of sandstone, millstone and quartz teeter on ridiculous pedestals, and some so closely resemble animals or other familiar things that the Victorians believed they had been sculpted by hand.

Legends have grown around stories of druids conducting their ceremonies in the shadows of the rocks, while ghosts of lovers who hurled themselves to tragic deaths are rumoured to stalk the land at night.

Indeed, such is the drama of the location, it has featured in numerous TV programmes - Emmerdale character Rachel plummeted to her death from Lover's Leap, while cult kids programme, Roger and the Rottentrolls, is another example of Brimham's star profile.

However, despite the rocks' popularity, there remained one cluster without a name - at least until yesterday.

The National Trust challenged visitors to come up with suggestions - and more than 3,000 put pen to paper in an attempt to win an eternal honour and a £100 pair of binoculars.

Among them were visitors from Denmark and Germany, and even Japan and Australia.

But, in the end, the winner was ten-year-old Emily Jennings, from nearby Ripon.

"I entered during a visit with my dad," she said yesterday. "I walked around it, and thought it looked pale and ugly - and that's what made me think of Devil's Foot."

Like everyone else, she filled in a card to enter the competition and dropped it in the box, finding out she had won when a letter dropped on the doormat at home.

"I thought I knew what it was when I saw it, but, when I opened it, I jumped up and down shouting that I'd won," she said.

Emily will now make a trip back to Brimham next week to be presented with her prize, and to be photographed with her rock by the media.

"I'm really excited," she said.

Special mention also goes to Vanessa Bell, of Selby, who came second with her suggestion of Elephant's Foot, while Peter Raymond, of Harrogate, came third, with Surfacing Submarine.

"The competition has been great fun," said Brimham Rocks property manager Jem Tuck.

"The judges were looking for originality, imagination, humour and something which would complement the established rock names. These were all qualities found in Emily's winning entry," he said.

Brimham Rocks: 320 million years in the making

* Rain, snow and frost are still gradually eroding the rocks, but 12,000 to 18,000 years ago the last Ice Age left its mark on the Pennines. Glaciers ground out the soft earth and the rocks visible today were left exposed when the ice melted due to the warming climate.

* Before that, between two million and 22 million years ago - the latter thought to be around the time the Pennines were formed - vertical cracks in rocks exposed to the air are thought to have been weakened by chemicals in the atmosphere.

* The dinosaurs are thought to have been wiped out by dramatic climate change brought about by an asteroid hitting the earth 65 million years ago. The catastrophic aftermath may also have had an impact on the environment around Brimham.

* It is thought that, 320 million year ago, Brimham was part of a river delta. Geologists believe millstone grit found in the rocks may have been washed into the area from a mountain range to the north, which formed when the North African plate collided with Europe, only to gradually erode, leaving granite deposits behind.