Whitby Abbey

Feel the wind first. Up here on the East Cliff, it comes straight off the North Sea, cold and salty, and it pushes through the empty arches as if the walls were never meant to stop it. Below you, gulls call over the red roofs of the old town. Ahead, tall windows of weathered sandstone stand open to the sky. There is no roof, no glass, no altar. Only stone, grass, and light moving across it.

This is Whitby Abbey. What you see is the shell of a great Gothic church, built mostly in the thirteenth century. Gothic means pointed arches, tall slender windows, and walls that reach upward. But the story of this headland is far older than these stones. Long before this church, there was another religious community here, and it shaped the history of English Christianity in ways few visitors expect.

The first monastery was founded in 657 by Oswiu, King of Northumbria. Northumbria was a powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom that stretched across the north of England. To lead the new community, Oswiu chose a noblewoman named Hilda. She became its first abbess, and later the Church honoured her as Saint Hilda. Her monastery was unusual. It was a double house, where both men and women lived a religious life under her authority.

Here is the first surprise. In the seventh century, a woman ran one of the most important centres of learning in England. Hilda was respected for her wisdom, and kings and bishops came to her for advice. Several men trained in her community went on to become bishops. Nothing of her wooden and stone buildings stands today. Archaeologists, though, have found traces of that early settlement across this headland.

In 664, this place hosted a meeting that changed the English Church. It is known as the Synod of Whitby. The question sounds small today: how should Christians calculate the date of Easter? Churches in the north followed Irish traditions. Others followed the practice of Rome. The two sides argued their case before King Oswiu. He chose the Roman way, and that decision tied the English Church more closely to Rome for centuries.

Now for the second surprise. The earliest English poet whose name we know lived here. He was Caedmon, a humble cowherd who worked for the monastery. According to the historian Bede, Caedmon could not sing, and he left feasts when the harp was passed around. One night, in a dream, he was told to sing about the creation. He woke with a hymn in his head. Hilda welcomed him into the community, and his short poem survives as one of the oldest known pieces of English verse.

This first monastery did not last. In the ninth century, Viking raiders attacked the coasts of northern England, and the community here came to an end. For around two hundred years, the headland was largely abandoned. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, monks returned. A Norman soldier named Reinfrid, who had become a monk, helped to refound a religious house on this cliff. It became a Benedictine abbey, following the rule of Saint Benedict.

The great church in front of you belongs to that later abbey. Look up at the east end, the part facing the sea. Its rows of narrow pointed windows rise in tiers. On a clear day, the sky shows through every opening, and the stone turns gold in the late afternoon. The sandstone is soft. Centuries of wind and salt have carved it into rounded, pitted shapes. Many edges that were once sharp are now smooth as driftwood.

The monks lived here until 1539. In that decade, King Henry the Eighth closed the monasteries of England and took their land and wealth. This event is called the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Whitby Abbey was stripped of its valuables, and the roof lead was removed. Without a roof, the building began its long slow decline. The land passed to the Cholmley family, who built a grand house nearby using stone from the abbey buildings.

The ruins have also been hit by war. In December 1914, during the First World War, German warships shelled the Yorkshire coast. Whitby was one of the towns attacked, and shells struck the abbey and damaged its west front. It is strange to think of it. A church that survived Vikings, kings, and centuries of storms was damaged by modern artillery.

Then came Dracula. The writer Bram Stoker stayed in Whitby in 1890, and the town found its way into his novel. In the book, a ship runs aground in the harbour during a storm. A huge dog-like creature leaps ashore and runs up toward the cliff. That creature is Count Dracula. Because of this, the abbey has a second life as a place of gothic imagination, and people dressed in black lace and velvet still gather in Whitby.

The headland has its own folklore too. Legend has it that Hilda drove a plague of snakes from the cliff, turning them to stone. Locals once pointed to the fossil ammonites found on this coast as proof. Ammonites are spiral shells of ancient sea creatures, and people sometimes carved snake heads onto them to sell. Another popular tale says that seabirds flying over the abbey dip their wings in honour of the saint. Watch the gulls above you and decide for yourself.

Before you leave, walk to the edge where you can see down to the town. The famous flight of 199 steps climbs from the old streets to the parish church of Saint Mary, beside the abbey. The River Esk runs out to sea between two cliffs, and fishing boats rest in the harbour. On the far side, the West Cliff rises with its hotels and terraces. From here, the whole town seems to fold around the water.

Stand still for a moment. Listen to the wind in the empty windows and the gulls over the harbour. Monks sang here, a cowherd found his voice here, and a king made a choice that shaped a nation's faith. Today, the arches hold only sky. As you walk back across the grass, look over your shoulder once more. The ruins look different from every angle, and the light on the stone keeps changing.