THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

The scene before us is wild and grand.  Large lichen-covered boulders, rolled down centuries ago, have their summits and sides partly covered with heather, in full bloom.  Not a blade of grass is to be seen in the valley, as the bracken, heather and bilberries carpet it o’er.

Heavisides/Rambles, 1903

Professor Ekwall suggests that the first element may be connected with OE pripel ‘instrument of torture,’ which has yielded dial. thripple ‘movable framework fitted on a cart.’  In that case we have a genitival compound and the meaning of the whole name would be ‘valley marked by a pripel,’ whatever the exact sense of the word in this context may be. 

Smith/Place-Names, 1979