UK - Whitby
By David Ellis
There are five reasons most people know about England’s little North
Yorkshire town of Whitby : James Cook, fish and chips, Dracula, a
modern-day TV soap, and old steam trains.
Sitting astride the
Esk River estuary, Whitby’s 14,000 hardy souls have learned to live
with the hammering winds that come in off the North Sea in winter,
while in summer it can also be postcard-perfect rustic England,
particularly on its older eastern side.
In those summer months
its one of the quaintest harbour towns in the country. Tourists flock
here to enjoy sunny strolls along the waterfront, the local fish
markets, browse the antique stores, and eat fish and chips at outdoor
cafes, in little restaurants whose window boxes overflow with
fire-engine red geraniums, or with a pint in back-street pubs where
battered haddock and chunky golden potato chips have been turned into
an art form.
And taking a stroll around the narrow alleyways in
search of history, in Grape Lane they find the one-time home of Quaker
ship-owner, John Walker and the sea-farer student who lived in his
attic – James Cook.
Cook was born at Marton near Middlesborough,
and was apprenticed to a grocer in nearby Staithes. But his real love
was the sea, and one day he walked the 21km into Whitby to ask Walker
if he would teach him seamanship and navigation.
Today in the
museum that occupies Walker’s one-time terrace house, visitors learn
about Cook’s life in Whitby, about the Endeavour that was built here,
and of Cook’s world travels; there’s also a statue of Cook on West
Cliff and a plaque in town given by Australia and New Zealand to
commemorate his achievements.
And if you are in Whitby on the
morning of Ascension Day each year, you’ll see a group of civic and
business dignitaries making apparent dopes of themselves as they
squelch through the mud of Whitby Harbour to plant, of all things, a
hedge before the tide comes back in.
This bizarre ritual started
in 1159 when three Norman noblemen on a pig-hunt discovered a hermit
giving comfort under a hedge to a boar they’d arrowed. They beat man
and beast to death, but in his dying moments the hermit prayed that God
would forgive them.
Hearing the story later, the Abbot of Whitby
was so angered he ordered that as pennance every Ascension Day a group
of ‘noblemen’ erect a hedge on the mudflats of low-tide Whitby Harbour,
or lose title to their lands. And to make their task all the more
difficult they could use, not spades, but simple ‘penny knives’ such as
that carried by the hermit.
The ritual is still carried out
annually 850 years later, and if the ‘Penny Hedge’ does not survive
three incoming tides it has to be built again.
Up the hill
overlooking the Estuary is an old hotel, and it is here when the winds
howl in off the North Sea and the fire crackles in its grate that the
visitor draws mind-pictures of that day in 1885 when Dublin-born writer
Bram Stoker decided during a stay that it would be Whitby where ‘my
Count Dracula will come ashore from Transylvania.’
Stoker was
captivated by the destructive storm that raged during his stay at the
hotel and which sank the Russian schooner Dimitry of Narva on the
nearby Tate Sands as she made for safety in Whitby: in his book he has
Dracula coming ashore ‘during a ferocious storm’ from the Russian ship
Demeter of Varna.
And for rail buffs the local North Yorkshire
Moors Railway has regular tourist-train runs using restored steam and
diesel locomotives hauling historic carriages to five nearby towns with
their yester-year Tea Rooms serving wonderful home-made scones, pies
and traditional pasties.
And on select nights, there are silver-service dinners in restored timber-lined Pullman carriages on runs into the countryside.
At
Grosmont the old locos are still serviced in the original engine sheds
– but it’s the 15km run to tiny Goathland that’s the most popular
day-trip, for this was Aidensfield of TV’s Heartbeat series, and where
you can visit the Aidensfield Arms, Mostyns Garage, the Village Store
and Greengrass’s farm.
Whitby’s a bit off the beaten track, but well worth the effort.
For more information go to www.whitby.co.uk
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