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WHITBY ABBEY - NORTH YORKSHIRE COAST
Dracula, Captain Cook, The Moors and Gothic Golf

Foggy mists drifting off the ocean coast cliff, fingers of moisture caressing ancient headstones of the graveyard under the shadow of the jutting jagged stone of an abandoned and wrecked abbey. An abandoned ship crashes into the docks of the English sea town, its dead captain lashed to the wheel as a giant dag leapt ashore. It was partly his view of the Abbey at Whitby on the eastern English coast of North Yorkshire, that inspired former theater manager Bram Stoker to write gothic literature’s most enduring novel and one of its most famous characters, Dracula. He could see the view of the ghostly ruin on the East Cliff of Whitby above the harbor and small narrow streets next to the moody graveyard of St Marys Church from the window of the hotel where he wrote much of his most well known gothic novel.The abbey was first established by the King of Northumberland in the Saxon days of the 7th Century. It was featured in the setting of the date of Easter to the Roman calendar rather than the Celtic calendar at the Synod of Whitby. Sometimes known as St. Hilda’s Abbey after it first abbess, the current form of the ruin is a gothic era structure, destroyed when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries of the Catholic Church in England.

Whitby was a quiet little sea village at the mouth of the Esk River, sandwiched between the North Sea coast and the desolate scrabby moors of North Yorkshire, now the North Yorkshire Moors National Park. Whitby became an important sea port with the coming of mining and was a major center of whaling, ultimately discovered as a seaside resort in the late 1800s, now busy in the travel season with a number of bed & breakfasts and small hotels catering to travelers visiting the park and coastal area between York and Newcastle. If you look carefully, you might spot the resort towns most famous literary citizen bloodsucker on holiday.

Reaching Whitby Abbey from town by foot it is necessary to climb a staircase of exactly 199 steps that have been in place for nearly a hundred years and recently repaired. The town’s most famous site can also be reached by car up a winding road from the harbor and a pay parking lot. Two on-off open top tour bus services run in Whitby traveling around the village to most of the touring sites and cost £4. Traffic on the main coast road through town can get quite busy.

The nautical heritage of Whitby is famously tied to scientific explorer Captain James Cook who set sail from the harbor of Whitby in the HMS Endeavor. Cook was not born in Whitby, but studied seamanship here. The Captain James Cook Memorial Museum is located in the 17th Century house of Quaker ship owner John Walker, for Cook apprenticed. The museum displays letters, ship models, maps and paintings associated with Cook and his other ship Resolution. Also on display, loaned from the British Museums collections are examples of the botanical studies of botanist Joseph Banks, sometimes called the “Great South Sea Caterpiller” for his slow studies of south Pacific island plants.

Moored at the harbor at Whitby is a replica of the HMS Endeavor which offers harbor and sea coast cruises, following the path and story of Cook, with views of the Yorkshire Coast, in season viewing porpoises, seals and sea birds, while listening to sea chanties sung by the crew.

Whitby’s connection to gothic literature and Bram Stoker’s Dracula has made it a sort of Mecca for the lovers of things gothic, celebrated twice each year at the Whitby Gothic Weekend, held at the town’s Spa Pavilion usually in April and October (Halloween). Goth enthusiasts come from all over England and around the world to fill the small village for the spring and fall equinox with jolly party folks in black.

For those with a bent for unusual spots for play golf, the charming public Whitby Golf Club is located about a mile north of the village with greens set on the sea cliffs, providing magnificent views and challenging head winds trying to drive across the striking deep ravine cutting through the 6th and 18th holes.

For steam rail enthusiasts, Whitby is at the coast end of the North Yorkshire Moors Steam Railway, though the schedule to Whitby is limited and more commonly departing from Pickering (see North Yorkshire Moors Steam Rides).

Whitby is about a hour and half from York by car on the coast road. By rail, Whitby is reached through connections from Middlesborough and Darlington. From the south, its easier to take a bus from Scarborough, York or Leeds where Whitby is served by the Yorkshire Coastliner Bus. Also along this route are Pickering for the steam train and the impressive Castle Howard recently the location for the film "Brideshead Revisited" (see Castle Howard Revisited). © Bargain Travel Europe

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See Also:

THE SALTBURN SMUGGLERS

RUSHPOOL HALL HOTEL

LOCOMOTION NORTH ENGLAND RAIL HISTORY

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